Sadly, I have personally watched keen advocates of various Codes of Conduct be prime violators of their own codes, and either blind to it or thinking somehow the standard is very flexible.

Pointing this out to them has usually resulted in them shrugging it off, in the manner of "it's not meant to be taken that seriously, it's so we have something to point at when we have to discipline someone".

Well, I sympathise with having something with which to discipline someone. But I think it's a bit rich when people egregiously violate their own advocated CoC.

I don't mean extremely subtle examples. I mean easy, blatant ones.

Like the time some people advocated for a CoC that said it's important not to view sexual images in a room without other people's consent as they may not wish to be exposed to them. Who then on a later date did exactly that themselves, with explicit vagina images, on the assumption that "we" all knew each other so assumed it was fine.

Ok, so people make mistakes. I have a lot of respect for the person who pointed out that we should adopt a CoC and then hold ourselves to it. Fine.

But did pointing out the sexual images go down well? No, they carried on, assuming I was being prissy. Leaving me wondering, why did you advocate for the CoC then?

I've seen plenty of others. People advocating for CoCs that say you mustn't derail other people's conversations, that's fun to watch as they do exactly that.

What I found, mostly, from discussing CoCs with people is:

1. Some regard them as "we need something to point to in sufficiently egregious cases that we have to discipline someone".

2. Some regard them as "pointing people to this will tell them our expectations".

Trouble with 1 is two things. First, selective enforcement. If you're not serious about the CoC, only using it to point to when you decided someone has done something bad, that's like having laws where everyone breaks some law all the time, and what determines your fate is whether the police like you or don't. Some judgement calls are necessary, but blatant selective enforcement is a problem.

Second, a list can't cover everything bad, it's not possible. If your judges believe in rules too much, sticking to the list, they will fail to judge some bad behaviours that should be disciplined. So you must have a fallback to "we decided your behaviour is bad even though it's not on the list", and if that's available, you don't really need the list at all for reason 1.

Trouble with 2 is, that might work if the prime advocates follow it. But if they are as I've seen sometimes (and it sounds like the judges in the article were), prime advocates of a CoC may be the ones visibly breaking it in front of everyone else. That sorts the group into an "in group" who set the real standard for what is expected, visibly; and an "out group" who are new, believe the CoC, and are afraid to act according to the social standard being visibly set by the in group. That's not fair and it can be quite harsh on someone conscienscious, inducing some fear of putting a foot wrong against the CoC, yet knowing they have to to fit in to the in group social norm.

So do I believe in CoCs?

Reluctantly, yes, because of the asshole problem. From time to time there's an asshole, making someone's life miserable, or many lives miserable. In a group there's often some kind of duty for organisers to care for those present, at least against serious abuse. I've seen people have a really awful time in groups being abused, where some power to intervene and a bit of guidance and authority to back it up would have avoided lasting trauma. In that situation you really need the abused person to know that someone "has their back", socially speaking.

A well crafted and fairly applied CoC, applied through gradual escalation (ie. talking to the person first to remind them it's a problem and please stop, etc) can, sometimes, prevent a minor or accidental asshole problem from growing unchecked. The article suggests gradual escalation didn't happen, and the consequences of serving judgement in the way they did, over a low level infringement, seems to have caused unnecessary emotional harm.

I think it's important the CoC is something that in-group people or leaders of some kind are genuinely willing to follow themselves. Not lip service, but actually visibly adhering to its ideas. Perhaps not strictly to every letter, but enough that most people will generally agree the spirit is being followed and treated with respect.

And having the CoC written out does set a tone. What kind of tone depends on how it's written of course, and there are a number of ways to do that. Some quite positive and constructive, others will set up polarisation. Having a CoC makes some people feel safer, comforted, better looked after from the beginning. If nothing else, it signals that organisers are aware of the asshole problem. But a CoC also makes some people feel less safe, if they think they're at risk of being found in violation if they dare to relax and be socially normal, especially if there's an apparent contradiction between encouraged in-group behaviour and what the CoC says.