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Comment on GitHub's Atom Switches from the Open Code of Conduct to the Contributor Convent

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The Open Code of Conduct is just too long and specific. To me, it feels like an attempt to preemptively head off 'rules lawyer' casuistry by ensuring that everything that could be a cause for ejecting someone from a community is explicitly listed. In my experience, this just provides a much larger surface of attack -- and the OCoC seems to be suffering from exactly that now.

The Contributor Covenant's approach seems to be to make a clear statement of intent, and relying on the community to apply it correctly. It doesn't specifically ban, say, offering a backrub, but the necessary and appropriate response to someone saying "ha, but there's no rule against repeatedly offering a stranger backrubs, IS there?" isn't to draft a new rule, it's to show them the door.

Well put. The solution to rules lawyering is not more rules.

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