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At the bottom of the Code of Conduct:

This text incorporates ideas and language from the Coral Project, Buffer, and Tech Solidarity codes of conduct.

First of all, have some imaginary points for including where you got your inspiration. Credit where credit is due, etc.

However...

Has anyone noticed that last link is a Google Docs document open for editing? A document which starts with the following paragraph:

This doc needs a new owner
Please email [redacted e-mail] or request edit access.

Turns out the current owner of the document is not a part of Tech Solidarity. Ouch. But that's not the most pressing problem.

The real problem is how easy it is to deface such an open document:

Tech Solidarity Slack Code of Conduct

This document might just be the new battlefield of a whole lot of internet trolls.

The current version looks bad enough as it is already. It's not a profesionally written piece, hard to read, too long at times, confusing at others, a hodgepodge.

Please either link to a proper alternative or remove the link altogether. Easily defacable content simply can not be affiliated to the Code of Conduct.

Note: Most of the useful content in that document was inspired by the Recurse social rules, a document of overall much higher quality and less risks involved. If we got to link to anything, might want to link to that instead.

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  • 11
    I wonder if this linking can be extrapolated to assume that the official stack overflow company policy is to oppose the trump administration. Probably not the intention to come across this way, but people are gonna make the assumption regardless.
    – Magisch
    Aug 8, 2018 at 6:32
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    @Magisch Among others, that's why we shouldn't link to that document. People can get odd ideas about endorsement with links. It's a mine field.
    – Mast
    Aug 8, 2018 at 6:34
  • I'm curious about why you think it's easy to deface that document though. Afaik, edits go through review, so unless the owner of the document agrees with the edit, it won't actually go through.
    – Magisch
    Aug 8, 2018 at 6:37
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    @Magisch The owner will change (hopefully, for the current owner) and SE has no influence in what will happen to the document afterwards. Until then, suggested edits are still viewable. Next to that, I kind of hope the current content isn't the original content (I haven't found the revision history of the document). If the current content is the original content, I'm not sure SE should've linked to such a politically motivated page in the first place.
    – Mast
    Aug 8, 2018 at 6:42
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    Not sure why you're surprised tbh, SE is well known to be left leaning politically. They even issued a call to action against an executive order by the trump administration early on.
    – Magisch
    Aug 8, 2018 at 6:53
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    I was also pretty concerned by our CoC linking to a document where edits can be suggested. We need a read-only version if we're pointing hundreds of thousands of people to it, they don't need trolls defacing it with suggested edits of size-72 "stack overflow suxxorz lelelelel" or actual real profanity.
    – doppelgreener
    Aug 8, 2018 at 7:46
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    I'm a bit more disturbed that SE even claims to have based its policy on those rather... disturbing and extremist policies (some of which are silly, others are downright offensive), especially given how political they are.
    – forest distrusts StackExchange
    Aug 8, 2018 at 9:11
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    @Mast So that cross that bridge when we come to it part has kinda happened. Since you posted this, the document has been edited a metric ton and links have been inserted, the whole thing formatted into comic sans, etc..
    – Magisch
    Aug 8, 2018 at 13:23
  • @Mast I think the original content is still available when you switch the mode from "Suggesting" to "Viewing". It appears that text was in the original. Which makes perfect sense; Tech Solidarity is a political organization for tech people. Here's a story about it.
    – Andrew Myers
    Aug 8, 2018 at 16:38

1 Answer 1

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Ugh. This link will be removed after the next build - thanks for the heads-up!

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  • Will any on site consequences result for the named users who attempted to deface this document?
    – Magisch
    Aug 8, 2018 at 16:00
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    How would you propose linking edits on a 3rdparty Google doc to a SE account, @magisch?
    – Shog9
    Aug 8, 2018 at 16:09
  • I was first thinking name but on second thought ... good point.
    – Magisch
    Aug 8, 2018 at 19:18

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