[apostacy]

Many codes of conduct include language like this.

> Our open source community prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort. We will not act on complaints regarding: Our open source community prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort....

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17012304

In other words, you can engage in harassment, and it will specifically be permitted, depending on the perceived identity of the victim or the harasser.

[jfengel]

I don't believe that's what it says. They talk about specific things that they don't act on, which are not in and of themselves harassment.

That is to say, if somebody is harassing you, you need to have a better justification that it is indeed harassment than merely that it's "reverse racism". Similarly, they're saying that if somebody refuses to explain "cultural appropriation" again, that isn't in itself harassment.

I'm perplexed as to why they even felt compelled to say that, since these aren't harassment. As far as I can tell, the point is to specifically call out techniques that are frequently used to harass people, badgering them to justify the same arguments repeatedly, or using frequent reports in the hopes of getting them removed. These are things that occur in a lot of online communities, taking advantage of the large numbers of people in the majority to shut down people who aren't.

Moderation is an imperfect process, and they appear to be publicly acknowledging ways in which it fails. And that they will attempt to compensate for it, in ways which are easily misrepresented as "abuse" by people in the best position to benefit from a nominally "fair" process.

It's clear that it's not a declaration that marginalized people can engage in harassment.

[apostacy]

See, this is a major flaw, because the definitions of harassment are further obfuscated. By having exceptions for bad behavior based on the self-identified identity of those involved, you are leaving open room for abuse.

This ambiguity and imbalance leads to those situations where someone can justifiably engage in meta-discussion about what these rules even mean, or how they should be applied (since it is based on subjective and improvable concepts, like social perception and ethnicity).

If a clear stand was taken on what was acceptable, it would be very difficult for trolls to stir up trouble by questioning the rules. Also, it is very self serving and convenient to simply say that anyone criticizing the rules must be a troll. Maybe they actually are pointing out legitimate flaws?

You wouldn't HAVE these problems if your rules were more clear and fair.

As for your example of "cultural appropriation", I am baffled how this would even come up in a discussion about software. So yes, if someone does make such a bizarre claim, then the onus is certainly on them to justify such claims.

And accusations of racism absolutely can be harassment. Trolls know this, and they have a good laugh at our expense. Honestly I can't think of any patterns of speech which couldn't, in some context, be harassment. So it makes no sense to write things like that off.

And what do you mean by "calling out?" What one person calls calling out, another person calls disrupting and harassing. I think many people who criticize a CoC are themselves, in their minds, calling something out.

And who decides what is a valid "sense of safety", that so many of these rules are predicated on? Can a "majority oppressor" feel unsafe, or is it only those who have favor with the mods?

One could easily use these rules against social justice goals. The flaws and open-endedness of these rules absolutely lend themselves to consolidation of power, corruption, and community harm.