Joke about the age of women led to a change in Ruby's code of conduct

The Ruby project code of conduct, which defines the principles of friendly and respectful communication in the developer community, has been amended to clean up language that allows abuse:

• Removed the clause defining a tolerant attitude towards opposing opinions.
• The phrase that prescribes a welcoming attitude towards newcomers, young participants, their teachers and accomplices of people who cannot restrain their emotions (“fire breathing wizards”) has been extended to all users.
• The clause defining the inadmissibility of bullying behavior (harassment) is limited only to protected categories (gender, race, age, disability, skin color, nationality, religion).
• The phrase that words and actions must be in good faith is supplemented by the fact that the participant must understand that the intentions and consequences of actions may differ.

The change was made to protect against the transition of technical discussions into a skirmish on the basis of differences of opinion and the prevention of offensive statements for certain people under the guise of an alternative opinion. In particular, the reason for the change in the code was a message from a newbie on the mailing list, dedicated to an error in the calculation of the expression "Date.today +1". The author of the message joked that such a mistake plays into the hands of women who do not like to reveal their true age.

In response, accusations of sexism, insults and criticism about the inadmissibility of jokes about vulnerable people rained down. Other users felt that there was nothing special about the joke and that the offensive reaction expressed by some of the participants to the joke was perhaps more unacceptable than the joke itself. There have been ultimatums with the intent to stop using mailing lists if such jokes are considered acceptable.

Opponents of changing the code believe that representatives of different cultures are represented in the community and that non-native English speakers cannot be expected to know all the nuances of someone else's political correctness. There are also fears that the changes will bury the possibility of expressing any humor, since for any joke there is bound to be someone who will feel offended.

Source: opennet.ru