[xouse]

I fully agree. I think the problem is that people want to talk about communicating effectively, and they just naturally mentally glom onto the CoC style of thinking, even if they don't put it there. The CoC style of correct/incorrect, do/don't, (and I'd argue a subconscious framing of good/evil), just aren't a good fit for something as complex and difficult as writing well and understanding the psychology of other people.

I think the right way to think about this is to separate communication into acceptable and unacceptable. The unacceptables fit perfectly into the CoC, these are the unimpeachably bad things you absolutely shouldn't do.

But the acceptables are a huge range that needs space to breathe. Putting advice meant to take someone's writing from good to great in the same place as where you tell people not to sexually harass each other is setting ourselves up for failure. The CoC style has inherited an implicitly punitive framework. Just like real legal codes they have no concept of a spectrum of excellence on the compliance side. You're never going to get pulled over by a cop and thanked for driving with exceptional courtesy. The law is binary, you're either speeding or you aren't, you're either complying with it or you aren't, the only spectrum exists on the no compliance side.

Really, the acceptables should be refactored out of the CoC, both in not explicitly being written into it, and not implicitly inheriting the same style. The unwritten assumption in the legal system is that human behavior is governed by outside pressures like punishment and reward, and because there is no outside pressure to motivate varying levels of good behavior, and behavior is only motivated by externals, good behavior is defined only as everything that's not worthy of punishment. But I think a lot of people genuinely intrinsically care about the quality of their communication, just like the quality of any other part of their work. There are people who want to teach, and people who want to learn, and it would be to the benefit of everyone if they had their own place to do it.