Compassion — An efficient alternative to rigid Code of Conducts
tl:dr; I point to unforeseen side-effects of most code of conducts. I suggest “compassion” and positive rules as a viable alternative.
“Modern” code of conducts (CoCs) are based on so called “speech codes” at Stanford ~30 years ago. These set of rules (CoCs or “code of conducts”) became a de facto standard at meetups and tech conferences. In 2017 grown-ups are publicly told “not to use sexualised language” and to avoid anything that “could be considered inappropriate in a professional setting” (Source: http://webzueri.ch/code-of-conduct.html). Taken literally, the only way to fulfil these rules is to not speak at all because people might get upset about all kinds of things — hence meetups and conferences should be silent, which would be absurd.
I get it that indeed we do have tons of difficult/toxic trolls in the tech community who harass and annoy others. I believe that CoCs are a weak countermeasure and don’t really help. They are a prime example of the the Dictatorship of the Small Minority. People who introduced them surely did so with the best intentions in mind to protect the ones who were being harassed from the attacks. Yet, it is questionnable if that really is the best
Ten years ago the tech community was less patronising. When I was nineteen I had to attend a math preparation course for my computer science studies. One morning when I got coffee before the course a female student approached me to ask where to get milk. I answered: “The milk comes from the same tube as the coffee”. She replied: “So it is a male coffee machine, then” and then she smiled. We both started to laugh. We immediately fell connected over this (sexual) humour and actually became a couple! I am really sad that this casual encounter might not happen today as her remark would violate most CoCs.
Meetup and conference organisers can limit, forbid and make people do anything they want (see Randall’s strip xkcd.com/1357) but I also have the right to question it.
Code of conducts are ineffective
Showing the Swastika in Germany is a criminal act. I am doubtful that a true Nazi feels less Nazi’ish if he can not show the Swastika publicly. Likewise, “forbidding to use sexual/violent/excluding language” might limit the kind of words someone uses but surely does not diminish the bad intent behind.
Some years ago when I was still a baby-recruiter, I was having drinks on a balcony with a guy from a top startup. The traffic lights at the intersection we were looking at were broken and a policeman was unenthusiastically orchestrating the traffic. This guy said with a strong vibe of superiority and irony in his voice: “Wow this guy has a very important job replacing the traffic light”. I felt disgusted by this demeaning remark and decided that I will neither hire nor work with this guy, if possible. No code of conduct can fix this kind of toxic attitude and behaviour.
On top, what can happen is that giving Code of Conducts to bad apples, we help to disguise their “true” intent. With a CoC in place, even the biggest a***hole will manage to avoid certain words that will bring him or her “officially” into trouble. Sure, this might protect the feelings of some people but what is worst is that the toxic person will stay in the community and find other ways to hurt people and we all will have a harder time spotting and actually fixing the situation (= kick this person out / warn employer in the city about the toxic person).
Code of Conducts have strange side-effects
At FOSDEM 2016 (open source conference), a construction worker who picked up C++ told me he does not dare to talk to a girl as he might be thrown out from the event since people might think he is hitting on her. This guy came to the conference to get substantial help on memory allocation and pointer arithmetic. Instead, he had to wast brain-space how to deal with speech codes.
Confirmation bias: How the mere existence of code of conducts fuel their violation
A set of forbidding rules like most code of conducts cause damage on a much larger scale. They act like a self-full-filling prophecy. Take the Salem witch trials in 1692. It started when four adolescent girls started epileptic fits without an obvious explanation. All it took was one idiot to suggest that witchcraft is the problem. And then confirmation bias kicked in: Everyone’s brain started to filter for witches. As a result, 20 people were executed.
When I gave a talk during Europython 2016, I mentioned that a good way to check for cultural fit when interviewing is to go to for drinks with the team. Most of the 400 listeners probably understood this remark the way I indented it: “Going for drinks” a figure of speech meaning that you should spent time with the team you are interviewing with outside the office.
One person in my audience decided to look for Code of Conduct violations, waited 30 minutes for the talk to end and commented that “going for drinks” would not include people who don’t drink alcohol for various reason and I should consider this, too — here it is:
The same way people in Salem decided to look for witchcraft, this person monitored my talk for possible violations of speech codes and decided to take my words literally.
Compassion: An efficent approach to stop toxic people
There is no doubt that some participants of meetups and tech conferences are morons and can’t behave. Instead of giving forbidding rules that have the side-effects mention about, I suggestion using positive-rules and compassion that has no side-effects:
Tech events should have a compassionate approach around social norms.
xxx Recurse.com has a “Social User’s Manual” that is a great example how to work on people’s intent. They ask their community to follow only two rules to not hurt anyone:
- No feigning surprise: you should not sound surprised when someone does not know stuff.
- No well actually’s: don’t be a smart-ass.
These rules don’t limit specific words (“sexual language”) but general concepts. This makes people focus on being aware of the intent instead of the words used which improves the community on a much deeper level.
It is simple to transform rigid rules into something compassion-backend and hence more efficient. One could turn the rule “don’t use of sexualised language or imagery and unwelcome sexual attention or advances” into simply “you will be kicked out if we notice that you intend to make people feel uncomfortable”
Conclusion
- Code of conducts lead to unforeseen side-effects like people erring on the side of silence although they want to say something.
- To have a truly healthy community we need an approach based mindfulness about our intent and focus on excluding bad apples on an individual case-by-case basis.
- I propose to use guidelines around compassionate speech instead of rigid, catch-all rules.
I don’t oppose Code of Conducts per see as they are needed because organisers want to protect themselves against potential legal problems (crazy participants suing the organizers for being harrassed), however, I would suggest a more pragmatic and mindful approach that might work in the tech community.
If you look for jobs in Zurich, Switzerland, which is known for Bay-Area salaries and small taxes, shoot me an email at iwan@coderfit.com. (Also, most meetups here still don’t have CoCs.)
If this article was useful, you might also like:
- Nine reasons why I moved to Switzerland to work in tech (Sept 2014)
- Why software engineers don’t get jobs: Four horror stories (Nov 2017)
- Switzerland: How buying real-estate can kill you financially and two reasons to go for stocks instead (Oct 2017)
- Five years after moving to Switzerland. Why I am still here. (April 2019)
Consider pre-ordering my book “Coderfit: Make more money as a programmer”
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Originally published at coderfit.com on October 8, 2017.
