Oliver Keyes wrote:
On the general subject of codes of conduct and what they bring (or don't bring) in terms of user safety and a sense of inclusion, I recently encountered http://wp.me/p11Aax-4aq on Twitter - it's an interesting read and brings up a couple of points definitely worth thinking about, namely that the intent behind a CoC is not to be the be-all and end-all of user safety but instead to set a very minimum bound of what is acceptable.
Am I supposed to know what a manfeeling is? It seems weird to me that the push (perhaps a movement, who knows) to implement codes of conduct has become so enmeshed with the ultra-liberal feminist movement. I think there are people who sympathize with and even support efforts to have codes of conduct in technical spaces, but who don't want to feel demonized for being male. There's a dark irony in sites such as Geek Feminism Wiki feeling the need to prominently answer "Are men welcome here?" in their FAQ (http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Geek_Feminism_Wiki_FAQ).
This isn't to say that there aren't good ideas and good people behind some of this content, but I can see a lot potential allies to the code of conduct cause being put off by the militant feminist language and overeager citations of feminist theory.
MZMcBride