There’s nothing welcoming about forcing project maintainers to do things.
I don't see why it's so "draconian" to expect maintainers to be civil as well. That used to be considered simple professional courtesy.
If only it were just that.
> That used to be considered simple professional courtesy.
And yet, some people are demanding projects adopt codified sets of rules on what is acceptable, what is unacceptable, what will be tolerated, what will not be tolerated, even what will obligate maintainers to take action or face repercussions themselves.
Some CoC activists (especially the "Contributor Covenant" and "Post-Meritocracy Manifesto" people) have themselves acted in ways beyond incivility, sometimes even emphatically and proudly, that would violate the very sets of rules they were trying to push on projects.
This is a political movement (and I'm not saying that that's bad) that is quite far removed from just asking projects to ask people to be civil, courteous, and professional.
EDIT:
HN won't let me reply to this thread anymore but, I don't think he changed his mind given his own words on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/DRichardHipp/status/1054901364181159941
"Giving in" seems more accurate than changing his mind.
Hipp:
> ... also learned that apparently no one feels the need to help novice CoC writers feel welcomed or safe.
Apparently! Good to see he's still got a sense of humor.
Then, a very enlightening response from a Social Justice Entrepreneur:
> There are folks who you could have hired to help you write and implement a code of conduct.
Hey, it's a living!
They are already there, and since they did all of the hard work of getting there and people are using their software for free, they should be treated with the utmost respect. People shouldn't come into their "homes" and start making demands. Also, how do you think we get more maintainers? I assure you it's not by abusing the ones we have.
> But it's true that maintainers need to do real work and expend real effort if they want to ensure their project is welcoming to newcomers.
If you want to start a project and make this a goal, more power to you. There is a large portion of devs that see this as a non-goal (SQLite doesn't have "newcomer" contributors for instance), and that's totally within their rights and something that should be respected.