1 Code of Conduct for everything?

[williamkapke]

I noticed that some projects/repos/WGs have copied the full text of a version of the CoC. IF we want to make changes/additions/revisions - it makes it... hard 👎

Can/Should we have just the 1 copy of the CoC?

The primary copy

https://github.com/nodejs/node/blob/master/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md

Copies I found

(I didn't diff them to see if they are identical or not)
https://github.com/nodejs/community-committee/blob/master/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.MD
https://github.com/nodejs/community-committee/blob/master/COLLABORATOR_GUIDE.MD

https://github.com/nodejs/post-mortem/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md
https://github.com/nodejs/benchmarking/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md
https://github.com/nodejs/http2/blob/master/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
https://github.com/nodejs/evangelism/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md
https://github.com/nodejs/Intl/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING-draft.md
https://github.com/nodejs/nodejs-uk/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md
https://github.com/nodejs/nodejs.org/blob/master/COLLABORATOR_GUIDE.md
https://github.com/nodejs/docs/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md
https://github.com/nodejs/nodejs-hu/blob/master/content/en/working-groups.md

These are special cases:

https://github.com/nodejs/node-chakracore/blob/master/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
https://github.com/nodejs/iojs.org/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md
https://github.com/nodejs/inclusivity/blob/master/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
https://github.com/nodejs/node-convergence-archive/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md
https://github.com/nodejs/docker-node/blob/master/GOVERNANCE.md
https://github.com/nodejs/docker-iojs/blob/master/GOVERNANCE.md

[hackygolucky]

@williamkapke Yes, very much so. This was something that was brought up in the meeting about forming the CC as well, that it's really important that everyone works together regardless of the WG or org they are part of to try to have a single CoC as a united community.

The challenge I have is that I think it -does- need to be visible and available to read fully without having to click somewhere. Humans are lazy :) I'm feeling very uncreative at the moment but is there an easy way to do that?

[jasnell]

It would definitely be ideal for there to be only one copy... but like @hackygolucky, I'm rather unsure how to accomplish that while retaining visibility.

[williamkapke]

Markdown is very limited in this aspect. The closest thing we would probably be able to do to keep the text in the README- but be able to update it else where is...🤔 ... an image of the text. 🙄

Thumbs down acceptable here lol.

[dshaw]

One other approach could be to place a link in all copies to the canonical version and request that all comments, suggestions, and pull requests be made to that version.

[nebrius]

hmmmm...what about coming up with a short version/long version like the GPL license does? Ideally the short version wouldn't change much, but would link to the longer version?

[jasnell]

I've been considering the possibility that the code of conduct should live in it's own repo (e.g. nodejs/code-of-conduct) and that each of the individual repositories should just link to it prominently in their README and contribution guides.

[ashleygwilliams]

@jasnell i think we could share this p well by making a npm package for the node CoC. it can be added as a dependency to every project. this keeps it in a place we can consider a single source of truth.. also... versioning!! thoughts, ya'll? happy to make that today if we are into it.

[jasnell]

That's a solid posibility. I'll bring up the idea of separating out the CoC on this week's TSC call.

[nebrius]

Interesting idea @ashleygwilliams, I like the versioning aspect to it! Do you have any thoughts on how this would be surfaced in README and/or CONTRIBUTING for people who never run npm install?

[ashleygwilliams]

i think we can also just link to the github repo @nebrius

[hackygolucky]

Update: TSC is going to move the CoC into its own repo so there is one that we can all link to, and communicate this happening with the various working groups who each have their own CoC up.

@williamkapke @jasnell I have a question about governance with the CoC. It was mentioned that current TSC governance allows for each WG to have its own CoC. Does that allow for a CoC to be less lax than the official Node.js CoC? I found this really interesting because it seems like a weird legal gray water.

I may have completely misunderstood the comment...

[nebrius]

I could be wrong, but I seem to recall that any alternative CoC needs to "backwards compatible," so to speak, and thus can't be more lax, however I'm not actually able to find that documented anywhere.

Regardless, I do think that should be a requirement. If nothing else, it makes moderation a lot easier because the project wide moderation team doesn't need to learn the ins and outs of the different CoCs (implying that anything extra added needs to be enforced by that group, not the moderation team, which I also think is a good idea).

Also IIRC, the old Inclusivity WG is the only group with a CoC that is practically different than the main CoC. Everyone else copy-pasted from the WG template, and so any differences are due to bit rot, not intentional effort. My memory could be wrong on this though :)