The biggest problem is that code of conducts are extremely hard to get right. Laws take experts years to write and then are constantly amended since they almost always get it wrong the first time. Thinking that you can write your own laws without any experience is wishful thinking. And an incorrect code of conduct does far more harm than good. [Spam link removed.com]
For instance I've seen the following (or similar) in a few:

> ask about gender rather than assume

Ignoring the fact that this is specifically excluding a group of people simply because they have different beliefs than you, this is a dangerous and hurtful rule to have. This rule dictates that you must ask very personal questions about sexuality when you're trying to interact in an environment that is not at all normally related to sex at all. Someone who's struggling to figure out their gender is going to be bombarded with questions that make them feel very uncomfortable for very little reason.

And for someone who identifies as one gender but is insecure about how they make look like another this question is going to hurt their feelings very much as they'll wonder if the asker thinks they look like that other gender.

before I get into this, could you confirm that you are, in fact, a real human? I mean no offense, but your username fits the traditional format for bots, and your post seems to have nothing to do with, well, anything else going on on the forum. besides the fact that we have a CoC, I guess, but it doesn't have anything like the clause you're referring to. anyway, all that is a giant red flag that this is actually a bot, but since as far as I could find it's at least not a direct copy-paste of a previous post, which seems to be the go-to bot tactic these days, I figured it was at least worth checking.

idk who you're excluding, people who want to refer to others in ways they don't want to be referred to? I think the point is to exclude them probably, not just because they're different, but because they're different in a way which is seen as socially detrimental. A CoC might also say something like "don't be racist" which could also be seen as excluding a group of people on the basis of them having different beliefs but there's clearly a reason you want to bar those people. The real question is whether or not there is a basis to excluding people who are unwilling to or uncomfortable with calling people by their preferred gender. Nobody wants to exclude people simply because their beliefs are different.

i can agree with this, although it depends on the specific community. If you want to be sensitive about how people prefer to be referred to (on forums, whoever wrote this post seems to be referring to IRL CoCs), then a simple "preferred pronoun set" field in the profile seems to largely solve the issues you've made. You could probably replicate it similarly irl with pronoun name tags or something. With more gender cues being present irl though, I think its necessarily going to be a space which makes more people uncomfortable, regardless of how its handled.



I feel like its more likely they'll assume you're asking because its the social norm within the community (as indicated by the CoC)

you dummies are talking to the air worse than the Pope does

i wouldn't be so rude as to refuse the air a conversation

out of curiosity i googled the post and found the source https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/co ... _i_insist/