this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2024
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I see where you are coming from, but to me it comes off as a little bit naive and reductionist.
That being said, I am thinking of this more globally, not necessarily solely in context of open source development (let alone this case in particular).
Why? I agree with him. CoCs are either a short redundant statement of implicit decent behaviour (do you really need to write down that people should be respectful?) or long lists of ambiguous rules that are used to pretend mod decisions are less arbitrary than they really are. Pointless in both cases.
If he had really done all these terrible things then would they really have not suspended him just because they didn't have a CoC?
I reckon you could put useful things in a CoC, like stuff about enforcement procedures, and in fact PSF does have that... but then they go and:
And the list of inappropriate behaviour is so extensive ("Excessive swearing"?) that they basically have unchecked power anyway.
I wouldn't be surprised if having an explicit CoC enforcement team is also likely to attract just the kind of people you don't really want.
I just find the notion that all CoC policies are useless in all cases to be a bit broad and almost parochial.
There can be cases in a multi-cultural collective where a CoC helps everyone get on the same page.
A CoC can also act as a "policy of last resort" where you generally have a more laissez-faire approach, but you can refer to the CoC policy if someone repeatedly doesn't get the message.
It all depends on the context of course, but staying that CoC policies are universally bad seems very simplistic.