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Comment by fc417fc802 | Hacker News Reader

Someone stating their reservations when those are directly relevant to the subject at hand, sure. If they aren't directly relevant to the subject under discussion but are directly related to a negative impact on the person while they were performing the relevant work then I get that as well.

But someone who isn't mature enough to separate their irrelevant personal views from the task at hand when communicating with an audience, not so much. It calls into question their ability to be objective.

Note that I apply this equally, even to those who interject pet topics that I strongly support.

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Granted. However, the quote at issue doesn't come out of left field. It is natural to consider the internal politics of an open source project when writing a wide ranging, in depth critique of the project. Plenty of projects don't have a CoC, it is idiosyncratic to be "proud" not to have one, and that does reflect on the project (I leave it to you to decide if it's for better or worse).

CoC are the homeowners associations of the free software world. Some think they're essential to keep undesirables out; others won't have anything to do with them.

Both are often the source of petty disagreements.

The source of petty disagreement, in this instance, is that you went to this website, clicked on "about," found an offhand mention of CoCs, which you took out of context to derail the conversation and start an argument. You complain that the author is injecting their "feelings" into a discussion, but you're clearly going out of your way to inject your anti-CoC politics into a discussion of an operating system. You complain that CoCs are tools to exclude people, meanwhile you are attempting to dissuade people from engaging with this author's work because an offhand remark rubbed you the wrong way.

Physician, heal thyself.

That seems a rather unreasonable characterization.

While I didn't raise a comment over it (since I felt it likely that it might sour the discussion) I too found myself wondering about the motivations behind that remark when I came across it. As it happens I had the exact same thought that GP had - to wonder if there was an ulterior motive at play. However based on the rest of the content I came to the conclusion that the site didn't seem to be particularly biased. Highly technically opinionated, a bit colorful, but not a malicious hit piece.

And for what it's worth I thought the HoA analogy you're responding to here was on point. Those also tend to be incredibly polarizing to a bewildering degree. Apparently a large portion of Americans get remarkably bent out of shape if you try to regulate their behavior, while a different set is similarly incensed by attempts to prevent said regulation.

The motivations seem pretty plain. They were anticipating the question, "why did you host this site yourself?" I don't think there's any need to read further into it. You seem to have come to that conclusion yourself.

The HOA analogy would be appropriate if HOAs were about conduct among colleagues. It's pretty obvious why you need to set ground rules when you have a huge number of people collaborating - you get incidents of people behaving inappropriately, and if that behavior proliferates, you will create a hostile environment where it's difficult for work to be done. (See this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43147705)

HOAs are a problem because there is very little shared interest in regulating the size of hedges or the color you may paint your house or whatever. It's a scheme to keep property values elevated.

There is no connection between these phenomena. One of them addresses pragmatic and real problems, however flawed the implementation may be. The author is a scheme to manipulate property markets. There is no shared cause between them.

The author's second point (about general hostility) answered the question. The CoC comment above it appears as a non sequitur to me. You misunderstood my conclusion - it was that the remainder of the site passed my "is this a hit piece or is this just a bit spicy" check.

> The HOA analogy would be appropriate if HOAs were about conduct among colleagues.

There was nothing inappropriate about the analogy. If they both involved colleagues then the analogy would be pointless because they would be the same thing. The entire point of an analogy is the abstract similarities between things that are different.

The necessity of CoCs does not follow from the necessity of ground rules. That is a conclusion that you silently slipped in without justification. Social norms have not historically been codified as CoCs. Moreover, I would dispute that codifying social norms is the actual intended purpose of CoCs despite being the stated one.

"Very little shared interest" and "scheme to keep property values elevated" appear contradictory to me. Property values are a very strong shared interest for most people. Avoidance of noisy or otherwise disruptive neighbors are another strong shared interest. Folks just don't always agree on all the details.

> One of them addresses pragmatic and real problems, however flawed the implementation may be.

That would be HoAs, of course, which prevent my neighbor from unilaterally tanking my outrageously expensive (relative to my income) investment. CoCs in contrast are a recent trend and thus obviously unnecessary for productive collaboration.

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