Code, conflict, and conduct

Similarly the list of forbidden things is open-ended, meaning that regardless of how one tip-toes around these things the politruks-that-be can simply knit up a paddlin' out of rumour and equivalent derivatives[-1]. Likewise the specification of what amounts to representation is left open, so there's no way to tell what -- aside from wholly anonymous contributions, which the kernel is infamous for rejecting due to the SCO kerfuffle -- wouldn't fall afoul of (say) the rainbow-haired twatter mobs.

There are other downright pernicious properties to this CoC. One of them is that it permits non-practitioners to participate in said twatter mobs at will, since penalties for e.g. harassment[0] apply only within the project. This is analoguous to the way non-practicing entities ("NPEs") are used to wage software patent wars by proxy: a NPE won't feel the burn from an auto-revocation clause in a general "public benefit" patent grant.

Another is that it enshrines a method of adjudication where the accused may be denied chance to face their accuser, or to even hear the content of the accusation in detail so as to mount a reasoned defense. As such there's nothing that wouldn't allow Kafka-style kangaroo trials where the accused is put to the block on the basis of false claims by imaginary people based on made-up evidence. There's no reason the most egregious of falsehoods wouldn't fly: by structure alone, the accused will be found guilty even when the accusation would be physically impossible[1], because all the prosecutor need do is ask that the deets be kept secret from even the accused.

Given the years-long history of this particular CoC and that of its authors, and particularly the way in which it's being applied[0] since its adoption in Linux, I hereby argue directly that these glaring flaws are in the CoC by design. In practice the document is a tool of power, of fascism presented as manners. Unless these failures are remedied forthwith, Linux as we knew it two weeks ago will become a sterile wasteland of poor technical choices[2] enshrined in the politics of ass-kissing, corporate power, and the accompanying cultural rot.[3]

[-1] for example, the number of claims made by anonymous people, as in the case of the german Tor developer accused of pretty much grabbing all the buttocks wherever he went. Twenty nameless people making specious claims are as good as one that can be investigated, as long as the press shouts hard enough.
[0] such as the tytso kerfuffle, which the usual suspects are warming up once again; spose they didn't like his vote against the CoC?
[1] e.g. when a person would be required to be in two places at once, when the allegations are so poorly formed as to not be testable using any empirical experiment (no matter how involved or expensive) whatsoever, or the allegations require grand conspiracy of the sort that always manages to conceal itself. The latter kind in particular turns the absence of evidence into not just evidence but also an extra damning conspiracy membership!
[2] that means you, kdbus.
[3] which isn't to say that it already hadn't.