Code of Conduct

On a personal level, I do believe it’s important to establish a Code of Conduct. A Code of Conduct is necessary in order to lay out the rules. More importantly, it serves as a way to make collaboration kinder. Software developers are, for better or worse, extremely opinionated. This often leads to extremely defensive and passive-aggressive behavior that can be antithetical to collaboration, improvement, and growth. Among projects that care about minimizing or eliminating this sort of behavior, the Code of Conduct serves as a concrete agreement community members can point towards when they want to punish this or any brand of disagreeable behavior. I doubt every developer reads the Code of Conduct before contributing to an Open Source project. However, I view the Code of Conduct like a car manual. While everyone should probably read it, when something goes wrong (in this case behavior wise) it’s the first thing you look at when you want to learn how to fix it.

It’s a shame not everyone reads the Code of Conduct too. The Code of Conduct is a really great opportunity to build the commmunity around shared values and a shared identity as seen in the Go Code of Conduct. Certainly, not all Code of Conducts (and Open Source Projects) are equal. I know from my experience reading the Go Code of Conduct, I felt more excited at the idea of contributing than I did when reading the Eclipse Code of Conduct. Regardless, the level of effort the developers put into their Code of Conduct is probably reflective of how strongly they feel about enforcing the behavior instantiated within it. After this week, the quality of a project’s Code of Conduct will probably weigh my decision as to whether or not I should contribute.