alt Hacker NewsCommunities were not doing fine. CoC didn't come out of nowhere because someone was bored. Having a CoC doesn't absolve moderators any more than having laws absolves judges from having to make good rulings.
Communities were not doing fine. CoC didn't come out of nowhere because someone was bored. Having a CoC doesn't absolve moderators any more than having laws absolves judges from having to make good rulings.
I've been part of a lot of communities and never have I felt that a CoC was missing or needed. CoCs didn't come because they were needed but because of a social justice fad. Have a look at the Tim Peters incident with the Python community. The decision to suspend him, a core maintainer (he wrote the Zen of Python), was justified by made-up absurd alleged CoC violations. Without a CoC they couldn't have suspended him as easily without totally losing their face.