Comment by stone-monkey | Hacker News Reader

Comment by stone-monkey | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> if I am looking to join a group of 3-4 people and they have a code of conduct already defined - I am just not going to come, simple as that.

I don't see why this is bad - groups shouldn't necessarily reach out to as broad an audience as possible. Like a sales funnel, the advertising in the group works better when it serves to filter out people who are incompatible with the group.

Your mindset reminds me of the ask/guess culture post on metafilter, which is a framework where people typically adopt either an attitude of explicitly asking for social expectations vs intuiting them through social context. You seem to prefer the latter, where people are expected to understand the implicit boundaries of the group through personal observation. There's nothing wrong with that; it doesn't mean the other way is inherently wrong, though.

I think their expectation is that any small group of adults should be able to respectfully communicate with each other, especially a voluntary collaboration around shared interests.

Formalizing rules in that situation usually means the group has at least one major asshole or bureaucrat causing problems (often the same person).

Or, perhaps the group aspires to grow larger.

You mean adults should act like adults?

That’s madness!

But yea, small groups shouldn’t be formalized. If people can’t get along, that’s a sign of poor social skills or someone is a total asshole in the group. Which, again, be adults and learn how to deal with people in a proper manner. A manner that doesn’t need the Twatter or the internet in general.

> an attitude of explicitly asking for social expectations vs intuiting them through social context

Formalizing rules isn't an attitude of explicitly asking them, but an attitude of explicitly telling them.

When you ask for them, there's fluidity into them, it's a communication, they can change when you add someone. Once it's formal, they tends to be less fluid and more forced toward any new person.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com