NathanLovato
commented
5 years ago Thanks for bringing this up, I wasn't aware of these issues. I like the idea of having contributing guidelines as lean and as friendly as welcoming as possible. So a stripped down and modified version of this blog post from Richard Stallman could work. Would you like to PR this or should I take care of it?
godofgrunts
The last commit to the README.md saw the inclusion of the Covenant Code of Conduct (henceforth referred to a CCoC). I suggest switching a modified version of the GNU Kind Communications Guidelines (henceforth referred to as GKCG).
The CCoC not only adds unnecessary burden to the maintainers by requiring them to investigate any "unacceptable behavior", both directly related to the project and also on social media, but also forces upon them the "responsibility to remove, edit, or reject comments, commits, code, wiki edits, issues, and other contributions that are not aligned to this Code of Conduct, or to ban temporarily or permanently any contributor for other behaviors that they deem inappropriate, threatening, offensive, or harmful."
This forces the maintainers to become the "thought" police for all contributors which is as ridiculous as it is unmaintainable and allows for the development of "witch hunts" where people go out of their way to find "unacceptable behavior" to have code rejected.
This is not a theoretical problem and examples can be seen here.
The GKCG, on the other hand, provides similar requirements for interactions, but doesn't encourage witch hunts or create an unneeded burden on the maintainers of the project. This will provide a more welcoming environment to contributors who do not have to fear that a tweet from 5 years ago will get code removed and contributions banned from the project.
Modifications will have to be made to fit this project. All references of GNU and related software will need to be changed, for example, but the rest of the guidelines for interacting should remain in place.