Code of Conduct: we need one (… in parallel / in addition to HBR)

[Bradley M. Kuhn]

>> On Thu, Jul 24, 2025 bkuhn wrote:
>> > I otherwise like the Contributor Covenant.  I just don't think it's a
>> > good idea for various reasons for Richard or me to enforce the CoC, and
>> > I note the Contributor Covenant says that "Community Leaders" are
>> > responsible for enforcement. 🤔

Ben Cotton wrote:
>> Can you say more about your concerns here?

TL;DR is: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
in English: “Who watches the watchers themselves?”

which is what Richard were kinda getting at here:
> The main concern I have with me and bkuhn enforcing the CoC is that we need
> some mechanism to subject ourselves to the CoC too,


Ben Cotton wrote further:
>> In my experience, CoC enforcement works best when it comes from people who
>> are leaders in the community because they have (generally) earned the
>> respect of the community*. Having an "outsider" handle enforcement can
>> lead to resentment from the community, and can also mean that the person
>> (ideally people) making decisions lack context of the day-to-day
>> interactions in the project.

I think it depends somewhat on who the outsider is.  Some outsiders wouldn't
be good, others would be.

Ultimately, if there is a complaint against a community leader, then they
need to recuse themselves.  Also, too often, a CoC complaint *stems* from a
disagreement about policy that turned into an ugly and inappropriate
exchange.

It might well help, especially given that copyleft-next is *all* about policy
(and nothing else) that maybe we want to appoint a panel of people who are
familiar with this project but aren't actively participating at this time.

Ben noted further:
>> As much as I hate to ask anyone to do CoC enforcement work, because it's
>> unpleasant, I do think you and Richard are the two best-positioned people
>> to do it, perhaps with a third person to provide coverage when one of you
>> is off-grid for a while, etc.

Richard noted further:
> … [how can we find someone] who is not too closely tied to the project to
> avoid conflict of interest but who cares enough about the project to be
> responsive

I think given that Richard and I are very “well connected” in FOSS, I think
we can get a panel of three people together who *aren't* actively involved in
the project, whom we trust and know well, and who would be willing to do it
because they care about this project even though they don't participate from
day to day.

If it was a lot work (i.e., lots of CoC complaints) we're doing something
wrong so it shouldn't be a big job: so they'd be a Reserve Force ready to
DTRT if something comes up.

--
     -- bkuhn, noting: IANAL & TINLA
        Fediverse (via Mastodon): https://fedi.copyleft.org/@bkuhn