> You wouldn't advocate scrapping the entire criminal justice system, just because one innocent person was convicted. A little more nuance is useful here as well.
I've seen positive outcomes from the criminal justice system. I have literally never seen a CoC lead to a better dispute-handling process than the absence of a CoC.
> Every community has its set of guidelines, either explicit of implicit, intended to foster the community's purpose. If I go to my neighbor's party and behave like a jerk, and insult the other guests, there's a very good chance that I won't be invited back.
Sure - but it will be clear who's responsible for that decision. Most likely someone will tell you to your face what you did wrong and give you a chance to defend yourself.
> In this case, I have no idea why the committee came down hard on the author. I saw the relevant portions of his talk, and didn't hear anything rude or objectionable. I think the committee got it wrong in this instance, but that doesn't mean everyone in future should be allowed to be a jerk, and not face any consequences.
You don't need a CoC to exclude jerks. You need a moderator (not a committee; a clearly accountable individual, who will bear ultimate responsibility even for those parts of the job that they delegate) who will apply good judgement in a visible way. Not only must justice be done; it must also be seen to be done.
Based on what I've seen of them in action a CoC is not only useless, it should be a red flag that the organisers have not thought seriously about their dispute resolution process.
> it should be a red flag that the organisers have not thought seriously about their dispute resolution process.
while that's very evident in this case this is actually what CoCs or written rules in general are for. Of course when you don't have a committee or a CoC however is in charge can still treat people arbitrarily, in fact much more so than when you actually have agreed on conduct and have a process to resolve things.
There's a good piece called the Tyranny of Structurelessness about radical feminist movements, where wanting to ditch all formal rules actually lead to even worse informal treatment, because officially leaders don't even exist, so there's nobody to blame.
You can look at this case also another way, at least there is an actual committee the author can blame and a CoC that he can argue he wasn't treated fairly by.
> while that's very evident in this case this is actually what CoCs or written rules in general are for. Of course when you don't have a committee or a CoC however is in charge can still treat people arbitrarily, in fact much more so than when you actually have agreed on conduct and have a process to resolve things.
> There's a good piece called the Tyranny of Structurelessness about radical feminist movements, where wanting to ditch all formal rules actually lead to even worse informal treatment, because officially leaders don't even exist, so there's nobody to blame.
I actually think it's the opposite: codes and committees make the structurelessness worse. The code creates the illusion that the rules are impartial and their application is a detail. The (usually secret) committee diffuses responsibility so that no-one's actually accountable for their decisions. It gives the veneer of process and objectivity when actually there's nothing of the sort.
Formalising the process - who makes the decisions, on what grounds, with what oversight - is important. Formalising the code without a good process is putting the cart before the horse.
There's a good piece called the Tyranny of Structurelessness about radical feminist movements
That's from 1970: "The basic problems didn't appear until individual rap groups exhausted the virtues of consciousness-raising and decided they wanted to do something more specific. At this point they usually foundered because most groups were unwilling to change their structure when they changed their tasks."
That's not just a problem with feminist groups. It's made other protest groups ineffective. Most notably, Occupy Wall Street. They got national attention, but then had no process for deciding what they wanted and pushing for it. The Portland protestors ran into that, too.
"Rules for Radicals", by Saul Alinsky: RULE 11: “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.”
Black Lives Matter is hitting this now. This is the agenda of Black Lives Matter.[1] "Page Not Found". The "Toolkit for Social Media", though, is available. The result has been way too much focus on PR, statues, and renaming stuff. Not enough about how to stop cops from killing people. (There's a straightforward solution: have the FBI investigate all killings by cops, immediately. There are about 1000 a year. The FBI has the authority to do this under the 1964 Civil Rights Act, but does so only about once a year. They usually wait until the local authorities haven't done much, and by then the case is cold. Requiring an investigation by an outside agency is a basic first step. This doesn't require new legislation; that battle was won over half a century ago. So that's something to push for.)
What goes wrong when your group doesn't focus is that eventually you either fail, or end up with a Strong Leader, which creates the usual problems. These are the usual failure modes of revolutions.
> Black Lives Matter is hitting this now. This is the agenda of Black Lives Matter.
Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation LLC, the organization you link, isn't the central organization of the movement, and certainly isn't the central policy organization of the movement. That's the Movement For Black Lives (M4BL). Here's their platform page: https://m4bl.org/policy-platforms/
I've seen positive outcomes from the criminal justice system. I have literally never seen a CoC lead to a better dispute-handling process than the absence of a CoC.
> Every community has its set of guidelines, either explicit of implicit, intended to foster the community's purpose. If I go to my neighbor's party and behave like a jerk, and insult the other guests, there's a very good chance that I won't be invited back.
Sure - but it will be clear who's responsible for that decision. Most likely someone will tell you to your face what you did wrong and give you a chance to defend yourself.
> In this case, I have no idea why the committee came down hard on the author. I saw the relevant portions of his talk, and didn't hear anything rude or objectionable. I think the committee got it wrong in this instance, but that doesn't mean everyone in future should be allowed to be a jerk, and not face any consequences.
You don't need a CoC to exclude jerks. You need a moderator (not a committee; a clearly accountable individual, who will bear ultimate responsibility even for those parts of the job that they delegate) who will apply good judgement in a visible way. Not only must justice be done; it must also be seen to be done.
Based on what I've seen of them in action a CoC is not only useless, it should be a red flag that the organisers have not thought seriously about their dispute resolution process.