Proposed Code of Conduct

Perhaps so.

That’s not the case with me though: I’m not an elected moderator and I don’t even know one.

Also I don’t know that anyone votes for the CoC, that might instead be a doctrine that’s imposed by the host (e.g. by SE) and defines the framework or the rules of engagement which users are supposed to be able to read and understand - and which moderators both enforce and are themselves bound by.

Sorry I think my own writing style is terrible at being welcoming or sounding natural.

In case you’re interested though, as feedback here’s how my inner monolog subtitles what you’ve written.

Be respectful and polite

“Is that ‘better say nothing – children should be seen and not heard, speak when spoken to but otherwise listen to their betters’?”

Treat others how you would like to be treated.

(You’ve heard my views about that already, above)

Presume good faith

“People might be mean to you, or swear like sailors, but don’t you say anything out of line. Remain timid.”

“We all know how to swear but at least let’s pretend: that we usually keep our trousers on here.”

“And ‘keep it’ is colloquial, slang: so this community is a monoculture, so, beware (which is aka be very afraid).”

“Now you’re talking (i.e. I warm to what you’re saying). This is prescriptive not proscriptive, tells me how I should and may behave and what I can give (i.e. “constructive feedback”).”

“Yes.” (i.e. ditto, I am warm to this)

“And yes. SE went a little further, saying to focus on the content not the person – ‘no ad hominem’ is how I call that.”


IOW I thought it didn’t start well. Maybe if it were a bit permissive to begin with, instead of starting with a “don’t be naughty” – maybe a mission statement or a definition of what’s on-topic, the extent to which commentary or extended dialog might be welcome, when to change the topic and how to know when to stop, whether new people are welcome or whether this is a “closed user group”.

You seem to have completely misunderstood what I wrote (as in, reading almost the exact opposite of what I meant to say). Maybe it’s because of some lost context (the lack of threading in Discourse isn’t very helpful in maintaining that).

Therefore the whole thing now in a complete package, without back-references, in a clearly structured package.

  1. The goal is that the rules are to be interpreted to the spirit, not to the letter.

    I think that should be uncontroversial (and I think that is the point where you completely misunderstood me; I definitely do not want to encourage applying the rule to the letter).

  2. It is a matter of fact that there are people that insist on interpreting the rules to the letter.

    I think there is no questioning of that.

  3. Since those people exist, we want to convince them not to do that. Which on first view sees to be a hopeless endeavour because those people will just point to the rules as written and say “but that’s what the rule says!”

  4. And here is where luap42’s anti-rule-lawyering clause comes in:

    Follow the spirit of the rules, not the letter.

    For anyone already following the spirit of the rules, this sentence brings nothing new. But if someone insist on the letter of the rules, it gives you something to point at and say “here, this rule explicitly says you are wrong. You cannot follow the letter of the rule without violating this rule to the letter. So your insistence of interpreting the rules to the letter contradicts the rules. And it explicitly does so, in an interpretation to the letter.

    And in this way, it ensures that following the rules to the letter is not a viable option.

Note that the reply I replied to was a reply specifically to luap42’s post stating that rule (and that rule only). I in no way did want to imply that we should have explicit rules for everything (quite the contrary).

I hope I have cleared up all misunderstandings now.

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Apparently I do think the opening is infantile, which colors the rest – not literally infantile, but “Treat others how you would like to be treated” is preschool-age IMO – safe for work, but immature and volatile.

And using the word “jerk” instead is, not an improvement – I find that hostile or inflammatory to begin with.

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@cwellsx I understand the problem. We are struggling to come up with language that is:

  • Serious without being too lawyer/formal
  • Friendly without being childish
  • Complete without being extremely long

It is not an easy task. As far as “preschool-age”, part of me reacts right away with:

  • “Everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten”
  • There are some people out there (and I am not referring to anyone currently in this discussion) who appear to have missed the lessons about sharing, politeness, etc. that they should have learned in kindergarten

And of course a large part of the problem is that the people who want to abide by a reasonable Code of Conduct are actually likely to do so even without being asked. And those who don’t want to abide by a reasonable Code of Conduct, will do what they are going to do (and cause problems for the rest of us) no matter what the Code of Conduct says or how it is presented.

So it almost doesn’t matter what is in the Code of Conduct. Except that there are some items (e.g., “safe for work”) that really do need to be stated because there can be situations where perfectly reasonable people (i.e., not intentionally offending others, not trolls, not spammers) use language in ways that we as a group generally want to keep out of this system for a variety of reasons.

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I second this. (I am writing this extra post, because I disagree with some other parts of your post, but still wanted to say that I think this is a good idea.)

One thing that needs to be considered is, that we had some “Discussion rules”, even before this provisional CoC:

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Yes. Thank you, I am sensitive to tone.

I had some extensive and professional pre-schooling (my primary schooling was a bit severe :shrug:).

There was a topic on Meta.SE: How to be nice (even when you don’t want to) - The basics.

There are some popular short answers there – I posted a long answer, which I wouldn’t how to summarise. That may not solve the problem at hand, but if it’s a topic that you want to study further then you might find further inspiration there.

Yes well I didn’t mind “safe for work” – it was the “Keep it!” that sounded like some gruff barkeeper threatening to cosh a drunk (instead of, a preschool teacher).

As a tech writer I was taught to aim for like a grade 6 to 8 vocabulary and grammar as far as possible – maybe a 10- or 12-year-old. That’s, old enough to be adult and for abstract concepts (like “kind”), not too complicated in its expression – including for English as a second language (“non-English” being another concept which, I don’t know, may or may not be applicable to the community of Writers).

So are there then, you say, situations which should be spelled out?

What do you think of just the central section of the Covenant – that’s not too long, is it?

Our Standards

Examples of behavior that contributes to a positive environment for our community include:

  • Demonstrating empathy and kindness toward other people
  • Being respectful of differing opinions, viewpoints, and experiences
  • Giving and gracefully accepting constructive feedback
  • Accepting responsibility and apologizing to those affected by our mistakes, and learning from the experience
  • Focusing on what is best not just for us as individuals, but for the overall community

Examples of unacceptable behavior include:

  • The use of sexualized language or imagery, and sexual attention or advances of any kind
  • Trolling, insulting or derogatory comments, and personal or political attacks
  • Public or private harassment
  • Publishing others’ private information, such as a physical or email address, without their explicit permission
  • Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional setting

It’s quite woolly, a lot of lee-way for a moderator’s interpretation.

And not too long – it’s five “yes” and five “no” (where “seven” is canonically the most a person might read).

“Contributes to a positive environment” is a bit high-fallutin’ but the license does allow you to “adapt” it.

If I were to adapt the above slightly I might try:

Our Standards

Be nice:

  • Demonstrate empathy and kindness toward other people
  • Be respectful of differing opinions, viewpoints, and experiences
  • Give and gracefully accept constructive feedback

Be helpful:

  • Keep the discussion on-topic (as described ?where?)
  • Learn from experience and from good examples, and from any moderators’ input
  • Focus on what is best, not just for us as individuals, but for the overall community

And never publish:

  • Sexualized language or imagery, sexual attention, or advances of any kind
  • Trolling, insulting or derogatory comments, nor personal or political attacks
  • Public or private harassment
  • Others’ private or personally identifying information, their name or address for example, without their explicit permission
  • Anything “not safe for work” – or inappropriate in a professional or public or all-ages setting
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I like the last version.

as listed for each Community.

There is nothing even close to a universal “on topic” as different communities vary considerably in the leeway allowed surrounding the “official topic”. But there will always be something - it is the one thing that every Community must customize.

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I could go along with that. It rightly focuses on goals and spirit.

(Maybe for that on-topic one, say instead to keep the discussion relevant, which is contextual and doesn’t require further elaboration.)

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I think actually referring to the Community’s specs (which can be done generically as I already noted) is the way to go. Otherwise, for example, “shopping questions” (which are off-topic in many sites, for good reason) would logically still be OK because they are relevant to the question at the time.

For those who don’t already know, shopping questions are typically off-topic because the information becomes obsolete relatively quickly.

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Just say …

  • Keep the discussion on-topic

… then – and assume that people reading know what the topic is, because it is defined somewhere else.

It’s all still boilerplate – it is now “long enough to cover the subject” etc.

And it’s all imperative – which helps to make it brief – it’s technical writing not copywriting, good enough perhaps.

If you could make it friendlier or funny then maybe better; I think it’s informative now – i.e. what the expectations are, without trying to teach you how to do that.


To check the diff of the new version against the original version at the top of this topic:

“Respectful” still exists (in ‘my’ draft of the Covenant), the rest of this phrase is gone, now with a more detailed list of imperatives instead.

Also gone. I don’t like because it assumes that people will be tempted to perceive bad faith. I’d prefer that “good faith” went without saying (and specify what behaviour is expected, not what faith).

There’s no "“no ad hominem” in the new version but you wanted moderators to intervene … if that (i.e. “no ad hominem”) is one of the places where moderators draw a line, maybe that can be a rule for the moderators to express instead of in the CoC.

This is rewritten. I kept “safe for work”, the Covenant had “professional setting”, and I added “all ages”.

The Convenant had that as “gracefully” rather than “good spirits”. I don’t know whether you require that second sentence too i.e. “don’t force it”. If you wanted, you might

  • Give and gracefully accept constructive feedback
  • Gracefully offer, and accept, or decline, constructive feedback

This is a repetition of the “good faith” message and again assumes there’ll be accidents (and is gone).

Maybe the newer bit, about learning from experience, and there being moderators, is better (and much shorter).

Instead of this we detail 6 different kinds of “not okay” – plus, 4 or more other kinds, which are the converse of what are okay.

That’s not exhaustive, maybe, but pretty detailed.

But there’s nothing currently in my draft of the Covenant about “reporting it”.

“[…] if someone tells you they don’t want feedback, don’t force it on them”: not sure what this is getting at. Criticism of posts is as much, or more, for the benefit of readers as for that of the writer; it’d be very odd to give writers an opt out.

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I know one guy who appears to be able to write (answers) but not read (comments) and who goes completely off the handle if anyone even questions the slightest detail of their answer. So it’s easier not to comment. They arguably shouldn’t be (allowed) on the site – they do get banned from other sites – that’s what I think of though, the “case” that this reminds me of.

Another case would be, if you post an answer and I say “You should change that because of reasons”, and you decide “No thank you” – then, I should respect your decision (and not etc. too much).

So it counter-balances a rule which says, “You must accept gracefully” and/or “take it in good spirits.”

Yes it’s not in the original Covenant and I’m not sure I like it as an addition, I think that’s what it is though.

If you’re asking, I don’t much like it because it is rules-lawyerly? I hope it’s obvious (goes without saying) as a rule, and if it isn’t obvious to someone in some case, then adding it to the CoC won’t make it more obvious (instead. perhaps it’s something which the OP or a moderator must explain at the time).

And it makes the clause more complicated, 3 verbs and a decision (A and B or C) instead of 2, a matched pair (A and B):

  • Maybe the two is enough – as in the Covenant, “give and accept”
  • And/or replace “give” with “offer” feedback – offering gracefully includes not forcing
  • Or possibly “receive” rather than “accept” – receive matches “give” and might imply “non-hostility” without necessarily “compliance”

The 2nd case is “Don’t pester”: fair enough.

The first, though, describes a situation where many communities would retort that writing an answer on a public Q&A site is to invite (polite, constructive) criticism: an over-arching CoC shouldn’t be construable so as to inhibit that.

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Yes an opportunity for peer review is one of the whole benefits of Q&A being in public.

A heuristic I use on SE is that people are allowed to post one (potentially critical) comment. If the comment is welcome then that conversation can continue (if they want). Of if the author appears to decline or reject that feedback then perhaps that’s it – the author should be allowed the last word (but the other person was allowed to post their comment, now the reader can decide for themselves).

The site on which I’m most active, & on which I’m a moderator, tends to be rather tolerant of discussions in comments; they’re often useful & very rarely acrimonious even when agreement isn’t reached. At any rate I’d say it’s for each community to develop its own etiquette around this.

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Yes what I wrote was a matter of “hard cases make bad law”.
Comments are generally exchanged without any seeming ill-will and without me intervening.
So it’s rare (or only with specific users, with the “usual suspects”) that I arbitrate somehow.
I’m moderating the Buddhist site – the large majority are moderate, already.

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As a lurker, I’m slightly nonplussed that a code of conduct gets more attention on this forum than, well, other things. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised, since CoCs are a trendy infection nowadays.

In my book, a mod who is a benevolent dictator can do a lot more for the good of the site and its members if not constrained by elaborate codes of conduct.

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We will not tolerate harassment of anyone based on any aspect of their personal identity": personal identity is a recondite concept & it’s unclear which of someone’s attributes might be aspects of it & which not. Why drag it in at all unless harassment based on other attributes (ethnic identity, say) is all right? Why not just write “We will not tolerate harassment”?

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That’s because many aspects have been decided already and we’re just waiting for our Tech Lead to provide the code skeleton.

The whole process is currently somehow delayed due to the holidays. However, that doesn’t mean nothing is happening. For example work is happening on our CSS design framework.