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By gdemet on
Earlier this month at DrupalCon Seattle, the Drupal Community Working Group (CWG) announced plans to begin the process of reviewing the Drupal Code of Conduct. The Drupal Code of Conduct, which is maintained and upheld by the CWG, governs interactions between community members. It is distinct from the DrupalCon Code of Conduct, which governs interactions at DrupalCon and other in-person events and is maintained and enforced by Drupal Association staff.
The current Drupal Code of Conduct was adopted in 2010 and last revised in 2014. Over the last two years, the CWG has received consistent feedback from the community that the Drupal Code of Conduct should be updated so that it is clearer and more actionable:
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A set of recommendations for improving the Code of Conduct was shared as one of the high-level findings from the community discussions facilitated by Whitney Hess in April and May 2017.
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63% of respondents to a community governance survey held in July 2017 said that updating our codes of conduct should be prioritized as part of the process of overhauling community governance.
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Improving the community code of conduct so that it is clearer and more actionable was also one of the key takeaways of the community governance discussions that occurred in the fall of 2017.
Over the last year, the CWG has been working on implementing changes to its charter to make the group more accountable to the community-at-large and provide a sustainable foundation for future growth. Now that those changes are complete, the CWG is now able to shift focus to the process of reviewing and improving the Drupal Code of Conduct.
To that end, we have set up a survey at https://forms.gle/rhKHorXXnp3wPQn2A for community members to share their thoughts, both about the current Code of Conduct and the next steps in the process. The results of this survey will help the CWG determine how, when, and who is involved in reviewing and updating the Code of Conduct.
We will be accepting responses through May 31, 2019, and we encourage as many community members to participate as possible.
Comments
It is comforting for leaders
It is comforting for leaders to have clear backing from the community for their decisions. However, I feel as though some of the effort to make the code of conduct comprehensive and actionable is motivated by the idea that leaders can only take action in situations that are covered by the code of conduct. A code of conduct will not remove the need for leaders to use their own judgment to make decisions that they believe are in the best interest of the community.
Just for clarification, not
Just for clarification, not all decisions need to be considered in light of the Code of Conduct. For example, all people using the Drupal.org website have agreed to the Terms of Service for the website. Breaking those terms might well lead to loss of access to the service without any recourse to the Code of Conduct.
Important
I think Darren raises a great point. The code of conduct is generally designed to apply to people's interactions, but there are a lot of important issues that it can't address. Leadership requires looking at more than individual behaviors but also systems that we create/perpetuate, and also at outcomes. (You don't have to be racist or sexist to participate in a process that produces unfair results, for example.)
That doesn't mean it's not also important to update that CoC, but that it's just one very important part of maintaining a healthy and fair community.
The feedback that we've
The feedback that we've received about making the Code of Conduct more clear and more actionable has come directly from the community, not its leadership. As Rachel points out, there are already a variety of governance and policy documents that exist, as well as our Values & Principles, which help provide guidance for leaders when dealing with difficult decisions.
The Code of Conduct is a community-facing document that's intended as a guide for *the community* to understand the expectations for how we treat each other. What we're looking for in this survey are ideas for ways we can do that better.
Agreed. But when conflicts
Agreed. But when conflicts arise, people can get legalistic, so I want to affirm ahead of time that a code of conduct and other documents are not the only basis for our expectations.