I understand the concern, however, if you look at how attacks happen
it is frequently through other sites. Specifically under/poorly
moderated sites. For specific examples, people who have issues with
people on Quora will frequently go after them on Facebook and Twitter.
these aren't a solution looking for a problem. If we just want to look
at the clusterfuck that is happening in the reddis community right now
we can see conversations spilling onto twitter and into ad hominem
vitriol.
You haven't established that this is both 1) the PG mailing list's problem
and that 2) this can't and won't be used to retaliate against those holding
unpopular viewpoints but aren't specifically harassing anyone.
Now, you may say that (2) would be rejected by the committee, but I would
counter that it's still a stain on me and something that will forever appear
along side my name in search results and that the amount of time and
stress it'd take me to defend myself would make my voluntarily leaving
the community, which would be seen as an admission of guilt, my only
option.
People are shitheads. People are assholes. We're not agreeing to join
some organization and sign an ethics clause when signing up for the mailing
list. The current moderators can already remove bad actors from the list.
How they act outside of the list is non of this list's concern.
Conferences are free to hold their own CoC because you explicitly agree to
it when you purchase a ticket, and it's governing interactions at the conference
(or should only be governing actions at the conference.)
Jim
