Looking around Reddit, I stumbled upon this Open Content & Software Magazine post asking if there is a need for a code of conduct for developers at the FLOSS community, and if anyone would follow it.
In short, the answer is yes in both cases. There is a need for a code of conduct and people who would follow them, but I'm not sure if only one code of conduct would suffice or would be followed by the community at large.
As such, we should be honing specific codes of conduct depending on the specific community where it will be applied. Most importantly, each community should make it's code of conduct and enforce it. A code of conduct that doesn't comes from the community, is doomed to fail from the onset.
It's vital that each community comes up with its own code of conduct, even if the whole community isn't engaged on coming out with it. At least the people who are seen as the leaders should be, as representatives of each of the groups that make up the community. If the community doesn't look at the code of conduct as valid, it will never work.
At the end, codes of conduct are essential to keep communities together. They give a guideline of what is expected of the members, and help to bring the community together around a set of values.
Codes of conduct help to know what to expect, and as such make the community they are in to be a lot more stable.
There always will be people who break codes of conduct, yet that doesn't make them useless. You need to find the community with the code of conduct that best fits what you believe. If not, your find yourself feeling uncomfortable or simply not fitting in.
There is a need for a code of conduct, and there are going to be people who follow it. But, there will be more than one.
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