It's impossible to create any practical rule governing human behaviour that enumerates every specific bad action. Just look at the law of any country, none of them are very specific.

Whoa, whoa, whoa... need to get that consent first.

Conservative and Liberal are insufficient tags nowadays.

If you identify yourself as a liberal, you probably nowadays think of conservative as meaning (perhaps not self-acknowledge) white supremacy and Trumpism.

If you identify yourself as a conservative, you probably nowadays think of liberal as meaning in favor of the kind of identity politics that leads to speech codes and censorship that begins to be reminiscent of Mao's cultural revolution.

The thing is, there are people who would at least have traditionally identified themselves with both labels who aren't either of this, but still actually possess the ability to reason. Sadly, the current climate is allowing the white supremists to come out of the woodwork and go mainstream, and that in turn is convincing people who should otherwise know better to endorse the extremes of identity politics censorship.

At the moment, the national liberal party in the US (the Democratic party) hasn't been caught up in the craziness of the left (i.e. overarching speech policies that consider saying "*hugs*" a form of agression), whereas the Republican party has at least partially been caught up in the craziness of the right (i.e. not recoiling from Trump). If anything, this makes the extremes of identity politics all the more insidious and dangerous. There need to be ways for people to stand up and point to the excesses of that without having to be identified with, or feel that perhaps they even must share a lot of values with, the jingoistic Trumpists of the world.

Consider this: one person says that they are disappointed that something in the code won't be accepted because it conflicts with something else that needs to be there. A second person says, "*hugs*" as an expression of sympathy in response. That second person is now on warning for violating community standards.

Is THAT something you want in your community?

This policy goes way beyond "don't be a jerk". This is the problem with speech restrictions like this. People point to "don't be a racist" and ask what's so bad about that. Yes, being racist is bad, and expressing it is a good reason for a community to ask you to step away! But that's not the only thing in here-- especially when you realize that terms like "reinforce systematic oppression" are easily interpreted to squelch very broad ranges of speech.

Avoiding offense is a two-way street. It's not just those who speak having to avoid saying outrageous and offensive things. It's also those who listen having enough resilience to not need strict speech codes to avoid being offended, and to be able to put in context what others say to understand that there's no offense there.

Just for a sec, you’ve no doubt heard “Bros” having a conversation where every benign statement is turned into a sexual innuendo. I’ve stumbled into those conversations at various points in my life and have quickly discovered just how easily my words can be twisted to have meanings that are completely contrary to what I intended. It’s a frustrating, demeaning experience. We rightly condemn that sort of immature, offensive culture.

Well, this is the exact same problem, but on the other end of the spectrum.

Instead of twisting everything into a sexual innuendo, this “hair trigger” culture twists every benign statement into an offense. They deny through their actions that the listener shares a responsibility to not seek out offense. They reject having the patience and tolerance necessary to push past what was said so that they can understand what was intended to be said, ensuring that communication WILL break down. They exclude people dissimilar to themselves, ensuring they will never understand those others. They insist on legislating speech so that anyone who wants to communicate with them must do so on their terms, which they then use as an excuse to blame everyone else for the misunderstandings that inevitably occur. They’re like children who invented their own language and then insist that you speak to them in it.

Having conversations with these people is just as frustrating and just as demeaning as having a conversation with the Bros, and while their motivations may be less degrading, their twisting of words is just as worthy of condemnation.

Even when you have two “good” people talking, there are numerous opportunities for each to be offended. Whether they will or won’t be isn’t something you can legislate; it’s just part of being an adult. Moreover, any attempt to legislate acceptable speech will inevitably fail because the target is constantly moving. That’s why sane policies are based on principles, not rules.

Remember the school who suspended [cnn.com] a teenager for two days because she was supposedly "inciting violence" with her anti-bullying video criticizing the school. That's what we're talking about here.

With overly vague but very strict written rules, that means the people in charge of an organization are free to interpret and reinterpret the rules however it suits them.

For instance, let's say x number of years from now, a FreeBSD committee chairman/president starts padding his/her expense reports with very large unrelated personal expenses, or holds a new election of board/committee members without telling anyone else about it but for a few of his/her personal friends.

Would the rules below be used to silence / banish the members who are asking too many questions?

Yes, you can bet they will. It's not that those rules necessarily have bad intentions.

I can certainly see them being used against stalkers and bullies. It's just that those rules are so overly vague, they will certainly be abused if/when a bad actor, or bad actors, ever reach power.