Proposal for a Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct

[ariard]

After discussions with the other London BitDevs organizers, I’ve proposed myself to write a code of ethics and professional conduct to encompass the in-person events and the communication channels surrounding the vents.

The main source of inspirations are the ACM and the CoreDev ones, and some considerations in light of past Bitcoin history (e.g the block size war).

As a disclaimer - While the timing and motivation of proposing such code could be a source of confusion for non-informed observers in reason of recent events concerning my public persona in the wider Bitcoin space, I can assert there is no direct link. The formalization of a code for London BitDevs is coming from autonomous and independent considerations.

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[glozow]

Confirming this was motivated by a discussion amongst organizers. Concept ACK to proactively communicating how we expect people to treat each other at a technical meetup and a transparent process for what happens when those expectations aren't met. I haven't read through the specific text proposed yet.

[ariard]

Updated at 660666c

The latest version (v0.0.2):

Maintain the full description of the “No discrimination or Harrasment of meetup members”. Somehow this is where cultural differences and professional backgrounds are playing out the most, so better to have this as much explicit as we can in my opinion. The text is inspired by the one from the U.S’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

Remove the principle rational for “No Ostensible Promotion of Commercial Material” on conflict of interests. Conflicts of interest prevention is really hard, and there is a risk to enter into bureaucratic discussions if we have an overlap between sponsors and organizers, as sometimes it does arrive for good reasons.

Remove the examples for “Neutrality of Bitcoin Protocol development” If we need to go in the last 10years of contentious Bitcoin drama, we can write multiple books on this. Just good to have neutrality as a high-level principle and see case-by-case.

Remove the principle rational for “Chatham House Rule and Event Confidentiality”. There are a lot of good reasons to have chatham house rules and there is already a wikipedia page on it, if people want to learn more about it.

For the “Enforcement Policy”:

• remove the notion of due process, i think the rules are protective of the defendant enough given the matters at stake
• remove the ability to appeal, same rules are protective of the defendant enough given the matters at stake
• add the ability to conduct the hearing in an async fashion by mail, makes it easier if people have travels or conferences
• remove the reference to the ACM code of conduct, if we have cases beyond the complexity than the Code Committee can handle we can always refer about it.

The enforcement policy is still very fleshed out with timeline as from my perspective:

• clear and transparent rules reduce ahead the risk of incident
• we’re all busy on a lot of stuff so “rapid” enforcement might not be done.

[ariard]

After chatting with the orgas, closing the issue.