alt Hacker News> I believe OpenBSD's code of conduct can be summed up as "if you are the type of person who needs a code of conduct to teach to you how to human then you are not welcome here".
I think that the goal of any code of conduct is to prevent any semblance of arbitrary and whimsical punishment, which can kill entire communities.
Linux unfortunately has to endure with toxic contributors and even maintainers, and history showed that when those maintainers fail to human and consequently the community banishes them, they go on a tirade arguing all kinds of conspiracies. A code of conduct is a form of checks and balances, and code of conduct violation processes serve as processes to collect and present objectively verifiable paper trails of exactly when snd how those maintainers failed to human, and how bad at it they were. Those types can't simply argue their way out of a list of messages they were awful to others, how exactly they violated the code of conduct, and how bad it was. Thus any stunt they pull is immediately rendered moot by the deliverables from the project.
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> A code of conduct is a form of checks and balances, and code of conduct violation processes serve as processes to collect and present objectively verifiable paper trails of exactly when snd how those maintainers failed to human, and how bad at it they were.
That's the opposite goal; the CoC is to be as broad as possible while still being as vague as possible.
It's a tool that has been repeatedly weaponised against the out-group by the in-group - there is never any sense of even-handed usage of a CoC against the community.
Failed to human is an odd phrase as humans are always just that. I prefer "don't be a dick" but I guess it is less civil.
> I think that the goal of any code of conduct is to prevent any semblance of arbitrary and whimsical punishment, which can kill entire communities.
Quite ironic then that CoCs overwhelmingly lead to arbitrary and whimsical punishment.