We’re building the friendliest places to write and run code on the internet, so of course, we want to write the most inclusive and protective Code of Conduct, possibly ever. And we want to make it easy for you to contribute to our stuff — so you feel welcomed, and everything is easy for you to understand.
Anything made for community should be created with the community, so we’re asking for your input here first!
- What are the absolute must-haves?
- What Codes of Conduct do you admire?
- What should we absolutely not include?
Thanks for building the good internet with us — we can’t wait to hear your ideas!
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https://www.contributor-covenant.org/ could be the baseline to define your Code of Conduct. It’s wildly used by others communities.
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The Geek Feminism Wiki has a Code of Conduct that I’ve always thought was a good starting point.
Also the JSConf “family” of events typically all have strong coc’s. The last one I attended, JSConf EU 2019, has an excellent one which provides reporters with actionable next steps when violations occur.
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Someone recommended the Django Code of Conduct a while back and I have been using it for open source projects ever since. I like how it is written, focusing on the things that make the community strong and positive, instead of focusing on describing the negative behaviour.
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Hi folks! I have written Code of Conduct professionally for several open source communities. Hannah asked me to drop some advice in this thread.
The Code of Conduct I recommend is the last custom CoC I worked on – the Python Software Foundation’s Code of Conduct. It uses materials from several different communities’ Codes of Conduct, including Geek Feminism, Django, Contributor Covanent, Mozilla Community Participation Guidelines, and more. I then added additional procedures and guidelines.
I recommend the PSF’s CoC because it has guidelines for reporting an incident and Code of Conduct committee procedures. Those last two documents are vital to ensure that a Code of Conduct is actually enforced. Most Codes of Conduct lack those two documents.
I would recommend taking the PSF’s CoC and modifying the scope of the document to include any Fastly online spaces and events. It’s very important to decide where the Code of Conduct should be in place.
For example, does the CoC cover this discourse community forum, or just Fastly’s GitHub repositories? Does the CoC include people talking to Fastly social media accounts or talking on Fastly promoted hashtags on social media? Does it cover reddit forums for Fastly products?
Also, a Code of Conduct is not complete until a community has a Code of Conduct committee to enforce it. I recommend finding at least three committee members from a diverse set of backgrounds and perspectives.
Finally, I would recommend committee members attend my Code of Conduct Enforcement workshop. My workshop coaches people on how to support people reporting Code of Conduct issues, how to evaluate a CoC report, techniques to encourage behavioral change in the reported person, and practice following up with the reported person.
My Code of Conduct Enforcement workshop is a great way to practice the skills you need to keep your community safe and inclusive. I hope to see more Fastly folks in a future workshop!
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That Python CoC looks great to me.
I’ve been a long time event organiser, I’ve attended hundreds of tech events and have also spent a lot of time in standards committees. I’ve generally adopted an existing CoC for communities/events I create, on the same reasoning as “don’t roll your own crypto”, it seems like making a good one is hard and probably not something you should attempt solo !
The main function of any CoC should be to reduce or remove fears and anxiety (and actual real risks, this is not just about the perception of risk after all) to allow the widest possible range of people to contribute to the community.
A lot of marginalisation is born of laziness, ignorance, or cultural programming. And I guess that applies to writing CoCs too. So crowdsourcing and using existing work is a good way to approach this.
Speaking as someone with a great deal of born privilege and who is not visibly an obvious member of a marginalised minority, especially not in tech, I guess the element of a CoC that I personally most appreciate is the level of detail given for behavioural expectations. There’s always a lot of subjectivity around judging alleged CoC violations, and it benefits everyone to be as specific as possible about what is and is not ok.
For example ive seen CoCs that say “we shouldn’t have to tell you how to behave”. I disagree with that, and personally very much appreciate being told what the expectations are for a particular space.
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I like Elastic’s CoC. To echo @triblondon, I think setting expectations of the guidelines and what’s considered inappropriate is valuable and appreciated.
Elastic has Community Guidelines that tie nicely into the company’s values. I also appreciate the list of inappropriate behavior and the call out of how they support diversity.
https://www.elastic.co/community/codeofconduct
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Hey everyone, we shipped it! Our newly-minted CoC is heavily indebted to the PSF code and we’re excited to share this as a step on our continual journey to better community engagement. Read all about it here:
Hannah and I are really grateful to everyone who helped us make smart choices here.
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