Go CoC updated to remove “punitive language and anonymous reporting mechanism”
I&#x27;ve always found this whole idea of a Code of Conduct pretty broken. It seems to be a document written by some kind of abstract, shared moral authority which apparently has the power to decide what&#x27;s good or bad.<p>You could possibly argue, that it represents a shared mindset of a group of people working on a common project. The thing is, it has become a base for witch hunting, public shaming and other conflicts because some people have taken the code of conduct as their bible and felt it was their duty to go on a crusade against the infidels.<p>Also, from a European perspective, it looks like such an American thing to do. You need written rules for everything. In Europe, when you go to a restaurant or a bar, the one common sign you&#x27;ll find is the smoking forbidden one. That&#x27;s it. People will politely ask if it&#x27;s OK to bring a dog, or just know that going without a T-shirt is a no-go. In the US, you need half an hour just to read through all of the information before even entering the place. And people would still challenge the rules that are not explicitly stated there.<p>As an anecdote, I once went to a conference in a European country where immigration is close to 0, thus people are pretty much caucasian. So there was this American speaker (obviously caucasian) talking about diversity in software and would kind of try to shame the event organisers and the audience because there was no black person in the room. It was one of the most absurd situations in my life.<p>To me, a Code of Conduct does not belong to the realm of software. Software needs to speak computer language, not be concerned with complex, ambiguous, human ethics. You can clearly tell that the Go team has decided to go the way of &quot;yeah, we are kind of obliged to have a CoC, but don&#x27;t want to be dicking around with the topic&quot;. Good for them.