Negative enforcement by punishment is not likely to hold well for programmers. What are you gonna do, ban all hacking? good luck trying to enforce that.
Such as? Right now you're option is basically to quit.
Also that still involves me losing my job. A code of ethics let's me say "I'm not going to do that, and you can't hire somebody who will."
Nobody is proposing that you need a credential to code. Just to be employed as a developer at a reputable tech company.
This is hardly a novel idea. Many professions have professional associations.
No, but ranting about illegal immigration (a totally tangential issue) does.
Nothing in the article is about illegal immigration, nor is the discussion of a Muslim database about illegal immigration. It's a red herring. We already have immigration databases.
This is how the alt-right derails discussion. They exploit our preference to treat all arguments as valid until we're at the point of debating whether mass deportation of ethnic/religious minorities is okay. The growing and vocal influence of the alt-right on HN should not be ignored.
The evidence is that many people on the other side of the isle are more than comfortable submitting articles from Daily Kos, Huffington Post and Salon.
Does this not refer to illegal immigration?
Ultimately, I believe there's a variant of this pledge that should pass the "moderate Republican" test. I recognize that the current pledge does not and I don't think that's because everyone who has an issue with this pledge is unreasonable or part of the alt-right.
More importantly, though, civility is an iron law on HN. The right response to someone who is baiting you into incivility is to flag their comments and to point out that that's what they're doing without descending into incivility yourself.
Why do you say that? I'm a reformed conservative, and most of the moderate Republicans I know agree that a database of Muslims is unethical and evil.
> The right response to someone who is baiting you into incivility is to flag their comments and to point out that that's what they're doing without descending into incivility yourself.
I don't think that helps much. Despite dang's best efforts HN is increasingly turning into a place where the alt-right feels at home.
That's happening consistently to the alt-righters I do see on HN. Why own-goal yourself by calling them names? Call out their arguments, flag their comments, but remain civil.
Regarding moderate Republicans: I think we're talking past each other, and that we agree. It's the specific language of the pledge that I think is tricky for them, not the substance of it.
Agreed, but I'm pretty good at detecting when people aren't arguing in good faith on certain issues, and exploiting the good faith of others to subvert the equally important civic notions of inclusivity, rationality, and consensus-seeking.