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OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

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OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

[Posted March 30, 2022 by corbet]
The openSUSE project has announced the adoption of a new code of conduct: "We hope that by having a clear and concise Code of Conduct for the project, the openSUSE Community can continue to grow and prosper in the years to come".

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OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Mar 30, 2022 17:09 UTC (Wed) by eplanit (subscriber, #121769) [Link]

It's interesting that the rather lengthy list of "attributes" does not include anything about political views or affiliations. Further, the scope of enforcement includes "private events" and "private conversations".

I'm all for requiring civility from those in a group of professionals, but this seems a bit ...authoritarian?

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Mar 30, 2022 17:43 UTC (Wed) by donbarry (guest, #10485) [Link]

They don't list authoritarianism as a protected attribute but it is clearly the primary one intended in the "not limited to" qualification.

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Mar 30, 2022 18:36 UTC (Wed) by josh (subscriber, #17465) [Link]

> It's interesting that the rather lengthy list of "attributes" does not include anything about political views or affiliations.

That's a desirable and standard omission, considering one common political affiliation these days is defined largely by hatefulness towards many kinds of people. Making political affiliation a protected category would make the remainder largely ineffectual.

It's perfectly fine for certain political affiliations to be unwelcome. It's fine to judge people by what they say and what they support. There is no intersectionality to be had between a group of people and the politics of hating and attacking that group of people.

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Mar 30, 2022 18:52 UTC (Wed) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]

> It's interesting that the rather lengthy list of "attributes" does not include anything about political views or affiliations.

Generally, you want to protect immutable attributes, things you have no real control over.

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Mar 30, 2022 19:19 UTC (Wed) by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106) [Link]

And yet the CoC's list of protected attributes includes a number of items one *does* have control over: education, immigration status, level of experience, personal appearance, religion, veteran status (unless conscripted), etc.

Personally I do not see enough of a difference between "political affiliation" and "religion" to justify protecting one and not the other.

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Mar 30, 2022 19:25 UTC (Wed) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]

> Personally I do not see enough of a difference between "political affiliation" and "religion" to justify protecting one and not the other.

"The openSUSE community is dedicated to providing a positive experience for everyone, regardless of such attributes (including, but not limited to)"

Given that list is clearly and explicitly marked as examples but not all inclusive, I am not sure what the point here is.

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Mar 30, 2022 20:11 UTC (Wed) by eplanit (subscriber, #121769) [Link]

The point is that it seems to be carefully written to specifically enable exclusion of people based on ideology -- this has become a thing of late, which is why it's noteworthy.

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Mar 30, 2022 20:31 UTC (Wed) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]

> The point is that it seems to be carefully written to specifically enable exclusion of people based on ideology

Again I don't see how, it explicitly includes for example, religion which is often representative of certain ideology.

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Mar 30, 2022 20:42 UTC (Wed) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link]

Avoiding exclusion on the basis of religion, ethnicity, or gender identity tends to imply the exclusion (or at least suppression) of certain ideologies.

And this is not a bad thing.

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Mar 30, 2022 21:06 UTC (Wed) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link]

There are political movements whose central tenets increasingly have become self-proclaimed oppression even when there is none in reality. Thus, these kinds of comments will always come up in these discussions.

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Mar 31, 2022 7:19 UTC (Thu) by LtWorf (subscriber, #124958) [Link]

Occasionally people are actually oppressed and might want to organise to stop the oppression.

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Apr 1, 2022 0:10 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

The problem is a lot of oppression is institutionalised, and often the oppressors don't realise they're part of the problem ...

I remember complaining about a lad at school who always played the race card, and I basically didn't like him because I felt he was a total brat. Then I can't remember exactly what, but somebody pointed out how my disliking him "as a brat" fitted easily into the "racial hatred" category despite me not giving a damn about our different races.

"Tyranny of the majority" is a real problem, and is made much worse if the majority aren't aware of it. The problem comes when the minority rub their attitudes into the majority's faces, but all too often if they don't then they are not given the opportunity to express themselves!

At the end of the day, I think we all have to do our best to respect other people, even if we don't like what or who they are. We might need that respect ourselves someday ...

Cheers,
Wol

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Mar 30, 2022 20:59 UTC (Wed) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link]

If someone keeps their political affiliation to themselves at SuSE's events, and goes along with the CoC at SuSE events even if the CoC might conflict with their political affiliation, then everything should be OK.

To the extent that political affiliation (or religion or anything else) makes someone unwilling to abide by the CoC, then that's just too bad; the CoC should take precedence.

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Mar 30, 2022 20:37 UTC (Wed) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link]

>Personally I do not see enough of a difference between "political affiliation" and "religion" to justify protecting one and not the other.

Religion gets used more or less transparently as a proxy for ethnicity and race with sufficient frequency that it pretty much has to go on the "protected characteristics" list.

Also, you only have control over your veteran status if you have always been a civilian.

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Mar 30, 2022 21:28 UTC (Wed) by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106) [Link]

> Religion gets used more or less transparently as a proxy for ethnicity and race...

Ethnicity and race are already on the list as protected attributes. If some other non-protected attribute happens to be used as a proxy then that can be addressed cleanly in terms of the protected attribute, not the proxy. It's not a very good proxy anyway, since while you can't choose your ethnicity or race your religion is entirely up to you. One is not obligated to follow a particular religion due to circumstances of birth—no more so than political ideology, at any rate—and most religions will gladly welcome adherents of any race or ethnicity.

> Also, you only have control over your veteran status if you have always been a civilian.

I did say "unless conscripted". If you didn't get a choice that's one thing, but if you choose to sign up that's you controlling your status. It's true that you can't alter your past and go back to not being a veteran—but that's also true of anything else you've ever chosen to say or do. If, as josh replied, "it's fine to judge people by what they say and what they support", then there is no issue with judging someone for voluntarily signing up for work in the military. On what basis *should* people be judged, if not by the choices they've made?

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Mar 31, 2022 9:17 UTC (Thu) by NAR (guest, #1313) [Link]

a number of items one *does* have control over: education, immigration status, level of experience, personal appearance, religion, veteran status (unless conscripted), etc.

Well, to a certain extent. Education and level of experience is somewhat related to age and one can't really change the later (except at the usual one year/year rate). Not to mention that at some jurisdictions some people are not allowed to receive (higher) education. The immigration status: if somebody's homeland is invaded by an other country (or flooded by an ocean), have to flee to stay alive and end up as immigrant in an other country - how much control do they have over this situation?

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Apr 1, 2022 3:48 UTC (Fri) by milesrout (subscriber, #126894) [Link]

Refugee status and immigration status are not at all the same thing.

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Apr 1, 2022 13:05 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

In the mind of outsiders, there is rarely any difference. Even among insiders too ...

We had a massive flood of immigrants in ?70s. I don't know the figures, but until we had all these refugees from Uganda I don't think we even really realised we had immigrant Indian population ...

(Yes I *know* Uganda is not part of the Indian sub-continent, but how many of fellow Brits - or even those Indians - either know or care?)

(I'm second generation Jamaican immigrant. How many people are there like me, whose experience is very different from the public impression? That's because I'm not black, but I'm just as Jamaican as many of them ...)

Cheers,
Wol

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Apr 1, 2022 23:18 UTC (Fri) by milesrout (subscriber, #126894) [Link]

I'm sorry. I fundamentally disagree with you. Absolutely everyone knows the difference between refugees and immigrants. The media has attempted to blur the difference in the last few years, trying to paint anyone opposed to mass immigration as opposed to *all* forms of human movement across borders, including refugees. But I think they've failed to confuse them, for most people. Everyone knows what 'refugee' means and that it's a completely different concept from normal migrants.

>until we had all these refugees from Uganda I don't think we even really realised we had immigrant Indian population ...

People were fully aware of the rising immigrant Indian population in Britain long before the 1970s. Heard of the 'Rivers of Blood' speech? It was a big political issue.

> (Yes I *know* Uganda is not part of the Indian sub-continent, but how many of fellow Brits - or even those Indians - either know or care?)

I doubt any significant number of people in Britain or anywhere else in the world (perhaps except the USA) would think Uganda is in India. What?

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Mar 30, 2022 19:12 UTC (Wed) by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106) [Link]

> Further, the scope of enforcement includes "private events" and "private conversations".

But only to the extent that they involve attendees of official OpenSUSE events. That doesn't seem quite so unreasonable; the CoC's impact would be fairly limited if it only applied to public speakers and ignored conduct between attendees outside of official public events.

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Mar 30, 2022 22:02 UTC (Wed) by pebolle (subscriber, #35204) [Link]

> I'm all for requiring civility from those in a group of professionals, but this seems a bit ...authoritarian?

The point of all this seems to be virtue signalling.

I'd guess the market share of SUSE is rather small and the market share of OpenSUSE is even smaller. It's unlikely that this will ever change. I think (Open)SUSE primarily provides rpm's of KDE, instead of deb's GNOME. No one outside our bubble cares about that!

Instead of confronting that problem they decide to slide into irrelevance, but who cares, since they're being just. That's all that matters anyway...

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Mar 30, 2022 23:33 UTC (Wed) by edeloget (subscriber, #88392) [Link]

> It's interesting that the rather lengthy list of "attributes" does not include anything about political views or affiliations. Further, the scope of enforcement includes "private events" and "private conversations".
> I'm all for requiring civility from those in a group of professionals, but this seems a bit ...authoritarian?

I think you're a bit disingenuous here. As often, context matters.

It's "private events off-site that involve one or more attendees" and "private conversations taking place in official conference hotels".

Having a whole code of conduct and telling the community "of course you can harass her in the toilets of the conference hotel" or "yes, you have to restrain you on IRC, but we have a good news: you are free to insult him if you happen to meet him at another conference" would have been weird, don't you think?

There are some behavior that cannot be tolerated within a community, even if this behavior is hidden behind a curtain or happen outside the public universe of the community.

For political views: as long as anyone is proffessing political views that don't promote hate then that's civil discourse and it shall be protected. Now, I'm not sure that the code of conduct shall protect a person who claims that all the (insert religion or ethnicity or sexual orientation or gender or whatever) shall all die in pain.

These code of conducts are the formalisation of "be nice to each other". Trying to find a hidden agenda in these texts is... well, it's a bit weird.

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Mar 31, 2022 0:44 UTC (Thu) by gdt (guest, #6284) [Link]

Your proposal is that "The openSUSE community is dedicated to providing a positive experience for everyone, regardless of such attributes (including, but not limited to): ... political affiliation"

I suggest you read that in openSuSE's European context. You'll recall that Russia has invaded Ukraine and that much of the remainder of Europe is sanctioning the economic and cultural activity of nations and people with a political affiliation with Putin. That is, very much not "a positive experience" for those with a "political affiliation".

I can well understand openSuSE not wanting to box itself in with a CoC which then doesn't allow it to reject conference registrations from people with notorious political affiliations, say, staff of Russia's FSB.

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Mar 31, 2022 12:36 UTC (Thu) by farnz (subscriber, #17727) [Link]

And also read it in the context of SuSE being German originally. Certain political beliefs are outright criminal in Germany, because they were implemented by the government between 1933 and 1945, and the consequences of accepting that those beliefs deserved to be permitted full expression were literally lethal to a subset of the German population.

It becomes challenging to write a policy that says that the political beliefs of the Reich's leadership in 1944 are protected, without also saying that it is fine to threaten someone with death simply for existing. And OpenSUSE is avoiding that challenge completely by refusing to protect political views as a class - that way, instead of having to balance the political viewpoint that certain categories of person should simply not exist with those people's view that they have a right to go about their daily lives without receiving death threats.

Simpler to just not protect political viewpoints in and of themselves, and instead rely on the more general expectations of being inclusive and civil, and respecting differing viewpoints.

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Apr 1, 2022 0:42 UTC (Fri) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link]

> It becomes challenging to write a policy that says that the political beliefs of the Reich's leadership in 1944 are protected, without also saying that it is fine to threaten someone with death simply for existing.

In the context of OpenSuSE and similarly-situated private actors, I broadly agree with this, but I'm hesitant to extend it to the government context in which Europeans generally like to raise it (often phrased euphemistically in terms of "proportionality" etc.).

The American position basically goes like this: If you only protect the political mainstream, that's functionally equivalent to no protection at all, because the political mainstream is in a position to look out for itself anyway. Therefore, the extent of your support for free speech is best measured in terms of your protection for the political fringes. Hearing this, one might ask why free speech is so important in the first place. The American argument would respond that free speech and democracy are two sides of the same coin, and that removing or suppressing the political fringes is tantamount to installing an oligarchy.

It must be emphasized that this argument is highly specific to the context of a democratic government. It is neither necessary nor helpful for OpenSuSE (or any other private entity) to provide its members with some sort of "free speech" guarantee, because OpenSuSE is just one of many participants in the marketplace of ideas. Forcing OpenSuSE to associate with people of all political stripes would necessarily entail, for example, forcing them to associate with people who oppose the development of FOSS, which is obviously absurd on its face. More generally, freedom of association is a natural and proper element of the marketplace of ideas, and its exercise by private actors is merely another form of expressive conduct; trying to restrict freedom of association would be problematic at best, and oppressive at worst.

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Apr 1, 2022 15:39 UTC (Fri) by farnz (subscriber, #17727) [Link]

This is not the place to go into free speech philosophy in depth, but I would just add to your description that a major underlying motivator for treating governments separately to companies is that the government asserts that it is the only entity permitted to commit violence in a given territory.

As a consequence of this assertion, it is reasonable to apply more restraints to government power than to a company; the government asserts that, if it so chooses, it has the right to have you killed or beaten, while no other entity has that right. Because of this, prohibiting the government from using its power to punish speech is different to prohibiting a company or individual from doing so - the worst a company or individual can do is refuse to associate with you, while the worst a government can do is actively kill you.

And it's important to note that even the American position does not protect you from consequences of speech; you are perfectly entitled to say that anyone who practices a Christian faith ought to die, but if that means that nobody wants to employ you, that's your problem. You're simply protected from the entity with the authority to kill you if it so pleases choosing to punish you.

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Apr 1, 2022 19:31 UTC (Fri) by pebolle (subscriber, #35204) [Link]

> the entity with the authority to kill you if it so pleases

Poe's law again?

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Apr 2, 2022 6:36 UTC (Sat) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link]

No, American police officers have killed enough people to make this literally true, at least with respect to the American perspective (which is, after all, what we were explicitly discussing, remember?). I don't see how you can characterize it as a Poe.

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Apr 1, 2022 9:45 UTC (Fri) by geert (subscriber, #98403) [Link]

By the same reasoning, a few others (e.g. "religion" and "sexual orientation") might have to be removed from the list as well?

So the whole "including, but not limited to" is moot, and we'd be better of with "Be nice to each other"?

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Apr 1, 2022 14:43 UTC (Fri) by farnz (subscriber, #17727) [Link]

Yes, they might. The list is not, however, normative in the sense of standards language - the normative bit is "be nice to each other, use civil and respectful language", and the list is an informative list of things where, if you're bringing them into the conversation, you're probably overstepping the bounds.

Political views is a hard one to include in such a list, because (for example) the GNU GPL is an explicitly political statement, so by adding political views into the list, you then have to clarify what subset of political views are exceptions from the statement that political views are potentially problematic.

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Apr 1, 2022 23:24 UTC (Fri) by milesrout (subscriber, #126894) [Link]

The GPL might be an *implicitly* political statement. We could discuss that. What it is not is an *explicitly* political statement. That is false on the facts.

You might argue that it is a political view to say 'I think that the state should only use free software' and that it is a political view to say 'I think that it should not have such a restriction imposed'. I don't necessarily agree that they're political views, but if they are, I think it's quite reasonable to require that an event allow speakers with both sets of views. Just because it's a free software event doesn't mean that you have to dogmatically allow only people with the most extreme free software views to speak.

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Apr 2, 2022 6:30 UTC (Sat) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link]

The GPL's preamble contains several explicitly political statements, such as the following:

> The licenses for most software and other practical works are designed to take away your freedom to share and change the works. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change all versions of a program--to make sure it remains free software for all its users. [...]
>
> [...]
>
> Some devices are designed to deny users access to install or run modified versions of the software inside them, although the manufacturer can do so. This is fundamentally incompatible with the aim of protecting users' freedom to change the software. The systematic pattern of such abuse occurs in the area of products for individuals to use, which is precisely where it is most unacceptable. Therefore, we have designed this version of the GPL to prohibit the practice for those products. If such problems arise substantially in other domains, we stand ready to extend this provision to those domains in future versions of the GPL, as needed to protect the freedom of users.
>
> Finally, every program is threatened constantly by software patents. States should not allow patents to restrict development and use of software on general-purpose computers, but in those that do, we wish to avoid the special danger that patents applied to a free program could make it effectively proprietary. To prevent this, the GPL assures that patents cannot be used to render the program non-free.

Use of terms like "freedom," "abuse," "unacceptable," "threatened," etc. all connote policy arguments, not a dispassionate description of the relevant law or the license's text.

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Mar 31, 2022 15:58 UTC (Thu) by jbicha (subscriber, #75043) [Link]

> It's interesting that the rather lengthy list of "attributes" does not include anything about political views
> or affiliations. Further, the scope of enforcement includes "private events" and "private conversations".
> I'm all for requiring civility from those in a group of professionals, but this seems a bit ...authoritarian?

I think the new Code of Conduct has the longest list of protected classes I've seen. Imagine someone who sees such a list and because it doesn't include their particular class, declares that the whole thing is authoritarian.

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Mar 31, 2022 16:18 UTC (Thu) by zdzichu (subscriber, #17118) [Link]

That's where (including, but not limited to) becomes relevant. It literally precedes the list.

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Mar 31, 2022 22:18 UTC (Thu) by Vipketsh (guest, #134480) [Link]

Quite frankly: is that supposed to put anyone's fears at ease ?

Your implication seems to be that "not limited to" should be taken to mean "everything". We all know that in practice "not limited to" means "whatever the people judging individual cases happen to feel that day", which is not reassuring in the slightest. It's most definitely not reassuring since the people who supposed to judge issues seems to be an anonymous "Moderation Team".

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Mar 31, 2022 22:35 UTC (Thu) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]

> It's most definitely not reassuring since the people who supposed to judge issues seems to be an anonymous "Moderation Team".

A quick search shows who committed it in git, the meeting minutes from board members and so on including the mailing list announcement and even an answer to this question

https://lists.opensuse.org/archives/list/[email protected]...

Spoiler alert: it is not anonymous, it just doesn't exist yet.

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Mar 31, 2022 16:38 UTC (Thu) by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106) [Link]

> I think the new Code of Conduct has the longest list of protected classes I've seen.

That is part of the problem. When the list is short and clearly non-exhaustive people expect to lean on the "not limited to" part more. A long list (despite any disclaimer) invites people to question whether any omissions were left out deliberately, especially when they seem more notable than certain items which were included. "Why are X, Y, and Z on the list but not W? Isn't W at least as important?"

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Mar 31, 2022 21:33 UTC (Thu) by HenrikH (subscriber, #31152) [Link]

On the other hand it lessens ambiguity since the items that _are_ on the list are non-debatable while everything "not limited to" has to be determined from case to case. If rules between peers worked as beautifully as "just don't be rude" then there wouldn't have been a need for a CoC in the first place.

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Apr 1, 2022 4:00 UTC (Fri) by milesrout (subscriber, #126894) [Link]

The items on the list are frankly ludicrous. Level of experience? Should every conversation be aimed at a beginner level in order not to exclude beginners? Doesn't that effectively exclude people with a lot of experience? And personal appearance? Is one expected to tolerate people that haven't had a shower?

What's more it includes items that are clearly simple matters of personal choice: body size, education, familial status, gender expression, immigration status, level of experience, personal appearance, pregnancy, religion, socioeconomic status and veteran status.

The whole point of 'protected characteristics' is that they are things that we do not have any control over, and which (as far as we know) do not influence our abilities or merits. There is emphatically no evidence that sex or skin colour have any influence on one's abilities, and we do not control these things. So it is considered morally wrong to discriminate on these sorts of bases. The whole justification for the concept falls away when you include in the list things over which we have control (or which we control *completely*) and things that are directly relevant to merit, like level of experience and level of education.

I remember when these lists were a few items long: sex, race, skin colour, sexual orientation. They've expanded and expanded over time and are getting absurd. What next, level of intelligence? I mean come on, this list includes *genetic information*. So the intent is for OpenSUSE to be welcoming to people regardless of *any* traits with a genetic component. That includes conscientiousness, intelligence and agreeableness.

People seem to want a world in which everyone is expected to treat absolutely everyone identically regardless of his or her personal choices or personal characteristics. That's frankly stupid.

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Apr 1, 2022 9:14 UTC (Fri) by timon (subscriber, #152974) [Link]

> items that are clearly simple matters of personal choice: body size, education, familial status, gender expression, immigration status, level of experience, personal appearance, pregnancy, religion, socioeconomic status and veteran status.

From my perspective, you are arguing in bad faith here. I am certain that these things are not "simple matters of personal choice". Or to put it in your words: The items on the list are frankly ludicrous.

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Apr 1, 2022 14:17 UTC (Fri) by eduperez (guest, #11232) [Link]

> What's more it includes items that are clearly simple matters of personal choice: body size, education, familial status, gender expression, immigration status, level of experience, personal appearance, pregnancy, religion, socioeconomic status and veteran status.
>
> The whole point of 'protected characteristics' is that they are things that we do not have any control over, and which (as far as we know) do not influence our abilities or merits. There is emphatically no evidence that sex or skin colour have any influence on one's abilities, and we do not control these things. So it is considered morally wrong to discriminate on these sorts of bases. The whole justification for the concept falls away when you include in the list things over which we have control (or which we control *completely*) and things that are directly relevant to merit, like level of experience and level of education.

Would you be OK if pregnant women were banned from participating in discussions, then?
Because being pregnant is a choice, and we all know pregnant women have hormonal issues, don't they?

/s (in case it's needed)

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Apr 1, 2022 23:21 UTC (Fri) by milesrout (subscriber, #126894) [Link]

Who said anything about banning anyone from participating in discussions?

But if there is some sort of event that, say, involves the consumption of alcohol (like a Linux Users Group meeting held in a pub), there will be people that claim that this 'excludes pregnant women' and 'excludes muslims' and 'excludes people who don't want to be around alcohol'. And yes, it does, in a way. So what? If you choose to subscribe to an ideology that forbids something many people enjoy, that's a choice you make. If you choose to become pregnant and can't drink alcohol, that's your choice. If you choose to abstain, that's your choice. You aren't being excluded, you exclude yourself.

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Apr 1, 2022 17:21 UTC (Fri) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link]

> Should every conversation be aimed at a beginner level in order not to exclude beginners? Doesn't that effectively exclude people with a lot of experience?

No. But if a beginner asks a "basic" question, you should perhaps answer it rather than brushing them off. Such an answer might consist of "go read the documentation" - but it should also contain a link to the specific document which answers their question. In some cases, you might find that such a document does not, in fact, exist.

At my job (Google), we have found that beginners typically do not ask enough questions, specifically because they think they should "look it up" first. This doesn't work very well, both because a significant portion of our documentation is inadequate or outdated, and because our systems are so large and complicated that it's difficult to know where to start. We have to actively encourage them to ask more questions, or even proactively ask questions on their behalf (when we know someone just used an unfamiliar term in their presence). I'm not going to claim that the internet definitely trained newcomers to behave this way... but it's a possibility that I'm seriously entertaining.

> People seem to want a world in which everyone is expected to treat absolutely everyone identically regardless of his or her personal choices or personal characteristics. That's frankly stupid.

The CoC does not actually say you have to treat everyone the same, merely that you should strive to give everyone a "positive experience." Indeed, failing to recognize that some people have unique life circumstances and need to be treated differently could itself be a violation of the CoC.

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Apr 1, 2022 20:59 UTC (Fri) by HenrikH (subscriber, #31152) [Link]

Even if we would accept your list of things as being matters of personal choice I still fail to see your argument for why people partaking in personal choices should not be allowed to have a "positive experience" within the openSUSE community.

Did you actually read the CoC that you are so upset about or is this just a standard SIC outrage?

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Apr 1, 2022 17:04 UTC (Fri) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link]

The Geneva convention tried that with the following language:

> Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed ' hors de combat ' by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.

IMHO that's a relatively short list by modern standards (especially when you realize that each of the "X or Y" items is just listing two synonyms instead of two different criteria). But various countries have argued that "any other similar criteria" doesn't include sexual orientation or gender identity, because those things are not on the list. You can't win just by making the list short.

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Apr 1, 2022 23:35 UTC (Fri) by milesrout (subscriber, #126894) [Link]

Well, do the words include that? It's a difficult question because it involves asking what we mean when we interpret such words. Are we asking 'would the people drafting those words have intended to include them?' Or are we asking 'would they be included if this document were drafted by similar parties today'? Or are we asking 'would the people drafting this have intended it to be interpreted differently over time so that despite not intending the direct inclusion those categories they did intend "whatever categories are customarily included in lists of this kind at the moment of interpretation"?'?

Is it a 'living document' intended to be interpreted according to the prevailing views of the time or not? If it is, then how does that figure with its status as a treaty? Treaties are by consent. States can withdraw from them, sure, but does that mean that not withdrawing from a treaty means that a state implicitly assents to its changing interpretation over time? Or do we say that they should be interpreted according to what was actually originally intended and contemplated by those drafting them originally, and if we want to add things not contemplated by the original drafters and signatories then we need to write *new* treaties for states to sign today, written in modern language with modern sensibilities?

These are both quite legitimate options. It is quite reasonable to say that 'any other similar criteria' should be interpreted as including criteria that is universally considered similar criteria today, or as including criteria that would have been considered similar criteria at the time, rather than what you seem to think it should mean, which is criteria that a certain segment of generally-left-of-centre western society would consider similar. While I agree that those categories should probably be protected, I'm not sure that that means that they are. These treaties are meant to represent international consensus, after all. I'm not really sure that there is international consensus that 'gender identity' is a protected status. Especially when it comes to prisoners of war: does that mean that male-identifying-as-female prisoners of war must be housed with female prisoners of war? That would be extremely controversial to say the least.

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Mar 31, 2022 15:09 UTC (Thu) by flussence (subscriber, #85566) [Link]

Imagine if every time a new fire code regulation was adopted, a flash mob of people with torches and gasoline cans appeared out of nowhere and started angrily yelling about these new firebreak doors are ruining the optics, this totally unnecessary red tape is going to raise their taxes, how dare those people with the fire engine get a free pass when they ruin carpets with their water, blah blah blah…

Every single time.

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Mar 31, 2022 22:20 UTC (Thu) by Vipketsh (guest, #134480) [Link]

That analogy is terrible. Fire codes has been around for centuries and have ample examples and cases available to be able to understand what the fire code means in practice. Thus we know that practically never does a fire truck come around, with a free pass, to ruin your carpet by sprinkling it with water for no reason. CoCs are a much newer invention having a distinct lack of publicly available material to understand how CoC enforcement plays out in practice (e.g. what does "not limited to" really include).

I was pretty much neutral when it comes to CoC -- if someone wants to implement one go ahead, but if not it's fine by me too -- but the more I read comments from proponents, the more against I become as there is a distinct lack of wanting to meet people with reservations at eye level. Every fear is, at best, just waived away with some text that amounts to "trust me, it will be fine" which is not how to have a civil debate and onboard people to your cause. There is also a distinct lack of transparency about anything practical surrounding enforcement of CoCs. Just take an example from this CoC: enforcement is handled by some "Moderation Team", whose members don't seem to be listed anywhere obvious. I understand that the nature of issues dealt with here are by their very nature not public, but still, not having any visibility into the process does not do wonders to make people feel all warm and fuzzy.

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Apr 1, 2022 13:11 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

> That analogy is terrible. Fire codes has been around for centuries and have ample examples and cases available to be able to understand what the fire code means in practice. Thus we know that practically never does a fire truck come around, with a free pass, to ruin your carpet by sprinkling it with water for no reason. CoCs are a much newer invention having a distinct lack of publicly available material to understand how CoC enforcement plays out in practice (e.g. what does "not limited to" really include).

I'd say that analogy is spot on! Yes the majority of people are like you.

But there's always the lunatic fringe flussence is referring to, who think their right to "whatever" includes invading your space to try and force you to agree with them.

Cheers,
Wol

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Apr 1, 2022 20:52 UTC (Fri) by HenrikH (subscriber, #31152) [Link]

CoC:s have been around a lot longer than Fire Codes. In fact it predates the written word.

OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct

Posted Apr 1, 2022 3:51 UTC (Fri) by milesrout (subscriber, #126894) [Link]

People *do* complain, and rightly, when unnecessarily onerous and unhelpful new building regulations are imposed, especially when they will cost a lot to implement and do little if anything to increase safety.

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