I am still new to this community, and am more of a lurker than a contributor.
Many of the projects I am interested in have a code of conduct of some kind, typically based on the Contributor Covenant[0]. If they are well-written and proportionate, I find them welcoming. And I, correspondingly, welcome them. Not because anything especially terrible has happened to me in such communities, but because it would send a clear message that nothing terrible should happen to me or to anyone else as a result of participating, and that were such to happen, it would not be tolerated lightly.
I searched this mailing list's archive, the Rhombus Tech wiki, and the elinux.org wiki, for evidence of a code of conduct.
Happily, the elinux.org wiki does effectively have a code of conduct:
http://elinux.org/ELinuxWiki:Policies_%26_Guidelines
However, neither the arm-netbook mailing list nor the Rhombus Tech wiki has one, as far as I can see.
Does anyone else here think it would be, on balance, a good idea to adopt a Code of Conduct, perhaps based on the Contributor Covenant[0], for some combination of: this mailing list; the Rhombus Tech wiki?
I would welcome concise responses in this thread, ideally formatted along the lines:
""" - arm-netbook list: yes.
- Rhombus Tech wiki: yes. """
I would, personally, *not* welcome receiving supporting arguments for your position, for the following reasons:
- I am much more interested in the community's view on whether or not adopting such a code would be a good idea, than its view on why it would or would not be a good idea.
- In discussions of the merits of such codes of conduct, both supporters and detractors typically raise pros or cons that have already been raised, by them or others, in at least one of the many such discussions that have occurred other communities. That is, the arguments on both sides of the debate are quite well-worn. I would prefer anyone interested in such pros and cons to look them up (e.g. search the Web) than to expend effort re-hashing them here.
- Such discussions of rationale often become contentious. The last thing I want is to cause acrimony on the list.
I hope that affirmative replies will predominate. If they do, then I will at some point in the future probably add a draft Code of Conduct page to the Rhombus Tech wiki and/or ask Luke to add one to the mailing list web page[1], as appropriate (unless someone else acts first). If they don't, or if nobody replies, then I'll quietly let this go.
Thanks :)
spk
[0] http://contributor-covenant.org/ [1] http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook