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Every political group has bad faith actors who care more about winning the argument than the truth. And worse faith actors who are just there to trash talk people. Just look at the red button / blue button argument (where the vitriol in the debate would only make sense if the buttons were real, or if people like being jerks).

Better faith CoC people talk about freedom of association vs freedom of speech - if a platform doesn't like their oppponents, isn't it fine to ban them? Or say it should just be treated as a more utilitarian "be nice" convention for the mailing list (obviously it depends who is calling the shots, but that is true in any project).

>Better faith CoC people talk about freedom of association vs freedom of speech - if a platform doesn't like their oppponents, isn't it fine to ban them?

Sure, but the problem here is far more insidious. By latching into delicate and, at times, controversial issues, CoC may hold a project hostage and threaten character assassination.

Imagine that for some bizarre reason, CoC establishes that issues are only to be talked about on Mondays. People can comply, or they can leave, no biggie. Strange but clear cut.

Now, say it instead establishes whatever politically motivated consideration. The choice now becomes one of positioning oneself into the current political climate. This makes sense at times, but also leaves a door open for abuse akin to rules lawyering, gotchas and crybullying. Sometimes creates a phantom HR that has no interest beyond exerting its power and which does d with no accountability.

Problem is anyone raising this as an issue or rejecting such proposal is going to look bad while doing so. It's easier to keep your head low.

And your argument is that the CoC that does the Monday thing is better, or what?
I think they're saying CoCs are being weaponized to enable arbitrary enforcement/discipline using subjective terminology (which I have noticed as well), and that that's a bad thing.

I have also noticed a stark hypocrisy where the moderators do exactly what their own rules say not to do, and they get away with it, but their users don't.

It's like they're just using the CoC to suppress opinions they don't like.

if a CoC can be weaponized, then the CoC is badly written. the existence of a CoC by itself is not the issue, even though some people claim that it is. that is a problem in itself.
"Better" in the sense that it doesn't risk the problems the other does. My intention with that example was to make it clear I don't have a problem with people doing whatever, regardless of me liking it or not.
The blue red button thing only works as a hypothetical. If it was real everyone would be choosing the same button and if blue was ever unlucky enough to lose, life would just go on for a majority of people.
At face value, CoCs are a way for open source project leaders to decide who gets to interact with the project. You can't have freedom of association while also demanding to participate in someone else's project on your terms when said terms contradict the wishes of the project leadership.

If I were to guess, the author may have intended "you don't need a performative Code of Conduct" to mean, if you're a small project and you just want to share with the world with the option of including contributions from outsiders in the future, you don't need to have a CoC right out the gate until there are situations that have already been encountered. No need to wrack your brain on purely hypothetical problems.

Having posted rules on a forum/mailing list/bug tracker is only done to cause trouble? Really?

Codes of conduct exist because the alternatives are either arbitrary punishment for arbitrary infractions, or complete spamfest anarchy. It baffles me that a crowd that previously preached netiquette are now so against clarity and healthy community. (Though on second thought, maybe this is a Goomba fallacy and the folks that have so much disdain for CoCs are the people who constantly spewed flame wars and spam on 1990s usenet)