[ta76567656]

Whenever I see a code of conduct I check if "political opinion" is a "protected class". Then I ask, "Could Brendan Eich have been excommunicated under this code?".

I rarely find the first. The second is less clear cut, as far as I can tell the new Linux contributor code of conduct would not have directly applied to him.

None the less, the harm is in that it empowers exactly the same group of people who got Eich fired in the first place.

Much like progressives try to "de-platform" conservatives, these codes of conduct "en-platform" progressives. And while some of their points are valid, it's hard to endorse their camp when they go around hit and run blackmailing others under the threat of shouting Racist! Misogynist! Shitlord! to force them to do things like changing master/slave database terminology or even more insane, changing blacklist/whitelist terminology.

[SolaceQuantum]

FWIW, I'm also a database researcher (or I used to be, in industry now) and at least in my sphere we tried to avoid master/slave terminology, and in fact I learned this from my advisor at the time, a well-respected professor, who mentioned it was racially insensitive. So, I don't think this is being forced by anyone except the people in the database community already. It's not like progressive mindsets don't exist in the database research community. Databases aren't exactly a great space to imply that conservatism is the mainstream and that progressives are foreign; several prominent current and former researchers are/have been women and the gender ratio is quite a bit different compared to other sub-fields.

That is to say, I don't understand the rhetorical implication here that progressives, or people who want to change master/slave terminology in general, are not part of the community they want to see change in. When that happens, it's just a community discussing about terminological use in their own sphere, which is also exactly what the blog post here is doing. I feel this should be welcomed within any community.

[klmr]

> Whenever I see a code of conduct I check if "political opinion" is a "protected class".

My guess is that you’ll rarely find this as it’s not a protected characteristic under the law (and, as far as I can see, CoCs essentially follow discrimination law).

> None the less, the harm is in that it empowers exactly the same group of people who got Eich fired in the first place.

But Eich wasn’t fired, he stepped down and resigned of his own volition. Both he and others at Mozilla maintain this version of events, and it’s — as far as I can see — uncontested. You seem to be saying that you want a code of conduct that explicitly prohibits protest against political opinions. Good luck with that.

> Much like progressives try to "de-platform" conservatives

This is a myth: “Deplatforming” is neither exclusive nor even particularly prevalent on the left.

> to doing shit like changing master/slave database terminology or even more insane, changing blacklist/whitelist terminology

Fighting against such nonsense seems eminently more sensible (and more winnable!) than fighting for the prohibition of political protest in codes of conduct.

[ta76567656]

My guess is that you’ll rarely find this as it’s not a protected characteristic under the law (and, as far as I can see, CoCs essentially follow discrimination law).

Whether that's the law wasn't my point. And actually some progressive states do have laws prohibiting employment discrimination based on political opinion. They probably came from the Hollywood Blacklists, and are now amusingly ignored and irrelevant as a moral principle now that the shoe is on the other foot.

But Eich wasn’t fired, he stepped down and resigned of his own volition. Both he and others at Mozilla maintain this version of events, and it’s — as far as I can see — uncontested. You seem to be saying that you want a code of conduct that explicitly prohibits protest against political opinions. Good luck with that.

The progressive demanded he lose his job and conducted a campaign until he did. Potato potato.

his is a myth: “Deplatforming” is neither exclusive nor even more prevalent on the left.

"They both do it" does not imply "the left doesn't do it". My point was just to introduce the tactic, which is relevant.

Fighting against such nonsense seems eminently more sensible (and more winnable!) than fighting for the prohibition of political protest in codes of conduct.

It is not winnable. Look at recent events, eg redis. And allowing codes of conduct that don't protect unrelated, out of scope, and otherwise politely expressed political opinions makes it even less winnable.

[klmr]

> The progressive demanded he lose his job and conducted a campaign until he did. Potato potato.

So what you’re saying is that you want a code of conduct to protect Eich’s free speech but not that of the people who campaigned against him. That … simply doesn’t work.