Who should enforce the code of conduct?

A project’s code of conduct is a vital part of creating a welcoming and healthy community. The existence of a code of conduct sets expectations for behavior within a community. It signals how the community expects its members to behave. Most people, of course, behave well with or without a code of conduct, so the mere existence of a code of conduct is not enough. Sometimes, the code of conduct has to be enforced. But who should enforce the code of conduct?

In a recent discussion on the copyleft-next project’s mailing list, Bradley Kuhn — one of the project leaders — raised this question. He said, in part:

I just don’t think it’s a good idea for various reasons for Richard [Fontana, another project leader] or me to enforce the CoC, and I note the Contributor Covenant says that “Community Leaders” are responsible for enforcement.

The case for outsourcing code of conduct enforcement

Bradley did not elaborate on why he thinks the project leadership should not enforce the code of conduct, so I’ll address some general arguments that I’ve seen.

Project leaders (generally) lack training and experience in code of conduct enforcement. Code of conduct enforcement is a skill, just like coding, issue triage, documentation writing, and any number of other activities that happen in an open source project. It’s not reasonable to expect one (or even a small number) of project leaders to be experts in every skill.

An “outsider” enforcing the code of conduct would be less biased. Someone who doesn’t work within the project on a daily basis doesn’t have history with the parties involved in a code of conduct issue. They don’t have to work with the parties in the future, either, so they avoid the temptation to make unjust decisions to “keep the peace”.

Code of conduct enforcement is emotionally-draining work. In the easiest cases, it requires navigating an emotionally-charged situation. In the hardest cases, it involves hearing about abuse or assault. Dealing with this is important, of course, but it takes a toll on project leaders and can accelerate burnout.

Why leaders should enforce the code of conduct

For every argument for outsourcing code of conduct, there’s a counterargument in favor of keeping it “in house.”

Leaders can learn new skills. Leading a project is not a technical exercise, it’s a people exercise. If a project leader doesn’t have the skills needed to handle code of conduct enforcement, that’s okay — they can learn. Given importance of code of conduct enforcement to maintaining a healthy community, it’s worth learning that skill. Project leaders don’t need to be the world’s leading expert; they need to be just competent enough.

Outsiders are not invested in the success of the project the way its leaders are. An outsider may look at the case in a vacuum, whereas the project leader understands the long term implications their decisions have for the project. Project leaders also better understand the people involved in an incident and can bring that broader context to a decision.

Code of conduct is an integral part of the responsibility of project leadership. Leadership is hard sometimes. Offloading the hard parts is abdicating leadership.

Easing the enforcement burden for project leaders

Code of conduct enforcement is a core part of leading an open source project, but there are ways to ease the burden. First among those is to share the load. A committee of three to five people means that the whole responsibility doesn’t fall on one person. It also gives space for recusals if one of the committee members is directly involved or has another conflict of interest. This committee can include people with formal leadership roles, respected community members, and an outside code of conduct expert.

If your project has multiple formal leadership roles (“maintainer” counts, here), include only some of them in the code of conduct committee at any one time. This allows for people to rotate out. Taking a break from code of conduct work gives people a chance to recharge and helps avoid the accelerated burnout.

Code of conduct expert Marie Nordin, who helped contributed ideas for this post, also suggests having legal counsel available to the code of conduct committee. This is not possible for all projects, of course, but any project stewarded by a foundation should have some form of counsel available for particularly difficult situations.

Early enforcement, with an eye toward encouraging acceptable behavior instead of punishing unacceptable behavior, will also help. The longer an issue festers, the harder it will be to resolve.

This post’s featured photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash.