Core Values as companion document to Code of Conduct

Adam Bergstein (nerdstein) has put together a list of great resources on open source community governance at: http://nerdstein.net/blog/community-governance-considerations-open-sourc...

In particular, he notes that many communities have the following:

• Shared Purpose - As a community, there needs to be a shared purpose that is the foundation for all community governance activities. This shared purpose is often a function of serving the community.
• A Representation of Values - Members want community governance to be a representation of community values.

For context, this was one of the items that came out of the recent community discussions (recording and transcript here). I've quoted the relevant portion from the transcript below:

There was really a big call for a companion document to the code of conduct that is around our core values as a community. This would be defining the kind of community that we want to be, with a global mindset, meaning this is not solely North American or western values. That is not the intention here at all. It really is to ensure that we're looking at this from a global perspective and have full awareness that these are the values of the global Drupal community.

And it would allow us to align our community members with the purpose of the Drupal project. It would need to create space for different values because we are all individuals, who hold our own values, come from our own families of origin, and cultures. And those do have different values. So, it needn't be rigid or restrictive. It does not to be open and flexible, but still have some kind of definition around it.

And also a recognition that if we define our core values, that there may be people who do not feel aligned with those values, and may choose to leave the community. And this is a direct statement that the "Drupal culture encourages collective ownership and individual contribution and empowerment." So, how can we create some form of documentation that defines what that collective is, but still leaves space for that individuality? And, again, when we onboard new community members, when new community members join the community, to give them some clarity around what is expected of them. And to confirm the understanding of expectations. Because we cannot expect people to abide by codes of conduct and align with core values if they haven't been made aware of them.

I can’t speak for the people who provided this feedback in the community discussions, but as I read it, I see this not as telling people how to think, but instead telling people what we value as a project and a community. For example, the Agile Manifesto principles tell people what Agile is about and what the people behind the Agile methodology believe about software development. This makes it easier for people to understand whether or not Agile is for them.

Similarly, people in the Drupal community have been saying for some time that we need to do a better job of communicating the “why” of our project so that it’s easier for people to decide whether it’s for them or not. As Emma Jane Westby put it in her DrupalCon presentation from a couple years back:

I like how the community is able to drive the direction of the software, but I also think it makes it difficult for people to decide if they want to (1) start participating and (2) continue participating. There is an unspoken assumption that growth is good; that more contributors are needed; and that the code base must support increasingly more complex systems. Is it time we wrote down these assumptions? Is it time to revisit our Principles?

Others have talked about the need for Drupal to focus on who it serves instead of trying to be something to everybody. Particularly given the changes introduced with Drupal 8, it’s more important than ever that we have a clear understanding of what Drupal is and who it’s for.

This is obviously a much larger conversation that should involve people from all across our community, and is not something that’s appropriate for the CWG or any other group to tackle on its own. For now, I’m going to mark this as “Postponed” until it can be addressed as part of the larger community governance process.

I'm going to mark this as "Fixed", as there's nothing more the CWG can/should do with this issue at this time, but people who want to provide feedback should do so in the governance queue: https://www.drupal.org/project/issues/governance