Adopt a Code of Conduct

Proposals Protocol and Governance
#1

Summary:

  • Adopt a standard code of conduct template across the entire project.
  • Encourage moderators to organise their own governance independent of project leadership.

Abstract:

In order to nurture its growing community, and to make it easier to moderate in a fair and predictable manner, Yearn should adopt a project-wide code of conduct.

Instead of reinventing the wheel, adopt a standard that is already used by large open sources projects such as Golang, Linux, React, Vue.js, and many more.

If this proposal passes, Yearn will adopt the latest version of the Contributor Covenant for all contributors to Yearn related repositories, forums, chats, communities, and events. Moderators across the project will work to uphold its standards and carry out enforcement actions as specified in it.

See the related FAQ for answer to common questions about the Contributor Covenant.

Moderators should begin to self-organize and discuss enforcement processes.

Motivation:

Without a code of conduct, it is unclear what kind of language and behaviour is tolerated in Yearnā€™s community.

It makes enforcement arbitrary and subjective, complicating fair and appropriate moderation.

Having a code of conduct makes it clear for community members what is acceptable behaviour, and what to expect when there are violations.

Having a code of conduct as a ā€œconstitutionā€, enables moderators to become autonomous and independent from the projectā€™s leadership team, as they can enforce its spirit without their involvement. This leads to less involvement of project leaders in moderation decisions, which leads to fewer accusations of abuse of power, censorship, or bias.

Specification:

  1. Verbatim adoption of the Contributor Covenant.
  2. Host on the yearn.finance website, with links to it from all relevant repositories in CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md files.
  3. Gather moderators together and work on enforcement, communication channels, and processes.
  4. Aim to create a separate moderation team that is independent of project leadership.

Poll: Snapshot

19 Likes
Let's take YFI to China
#2

So just be respectful to people? Ok Iā€™ll vote FOR

#3

Yes this seems like a necessary step in the growth of the protocolā€¦

#4

Why would we need to adopt a third party code of conduct for people to be respectful to each other? This seems unnecessary. If needed we can come up with our own code of conduct and vote on it.

From Googling it there seems to be some controversy too.

1 Like
#5

If youā€™re volunteering to write an alternative @Falsen that would be great. Though the process of writing our own would take a lot of effort and if thereā€™s a good and tested one available thatā€™s my preference. Re controversy, Iā€™d assume any document like this would gain some.

Iā€™m for having an agreed upon code of conduct. Otherwise there are no grounds for taking action if thereā€™s an issue.

3 Likes
#6

just my thoughtā€¦writing our own would be like reinventing the wheelā€¦our efforts might be better spent focusing on other areas. The code of conduct is mostly common sense stuffā€¦comes in handy during crisis management, thats all.

2 Likes
#7

Having a code of conduct is very beneficial because if someone is being abusive to another member (as one example), we now have something to point to when we mute/suspend/ban them instead of just an arbitrary ā€œyou were being abusiveā€.

There are plenty of other communities who have been around far longer than Yearn, and so it makes sense to pull a code of conduct from places who have had time to iron out the kinks.

Iā€™m for.

2 Likes
#8

As long as the rules are clearly and objectively defined in advance, I vote FOR.

2 Likes
#9

Agree, this make the whole project much more legitimate.

1 Like
#10

The Contributor Covenant comes with a lot of baggage, including numerous instances where it appears to have been weaponized to settle internal disputes between various factions working on a project by one side getting the other side excommunicated for violating the CC. If anyone is interested, it is quite easy to find extensive discussions of these issues online.

I honestly do not see a reason for the adoption of a code of conduct through governance. Team members responsible for community engagement are capable and well suited to adopt community guidelines, and the team can determine how its members will interact with each other. If problems arise concerning such guidelines and standards, a governance decision can be made concerning the continued retention of the people responsible for adopting/enforcing those guidelines and standards. Otherwise, let the team members do their thing.

1 Like
#11

This is a good idea however we first need to as a community define what is our mission and what are our core values. This is essential to clearly defining what the yearn culture is. From there itā€™s easy to define a code of conduct as any behaviour that takes us away from them should not be supported/tolerated.

World class organisations have crystal clear mission statements and values.

You can read the amazing book on the importance of company culture by Ben Horowitz (of a16z fame) ā€˜What you do is who you areā€™ https://www.amazon.co.uk/What-You-Do-Who-Are/dp/0008356114

#12

To add to that, if we had had these elements defined it would have made the entire EMN debacle significantly easier to navigate and probably avoid altogether.

#13

The different venues of exchange have highly differing levels of discourse and expectations. Reddit posters are willing to wait for well thought out , edited replies. Where TG POers want quik ansers, now.

If there are complaints or issues arising this might be needed, but as you say, no reason to reinvent the wheel

#14

By word count, over 60% of this code of conduct is about enforcement. It imposes a very authoritarian view of community, giving ā€œleadersā€ the responsibility to control standards. This is not a good fit for a community driven (somewhat) leaderless initiative.

To give a specific counterproposal, I instead propose that the three sections Enforcement Responsibilities, Enforcement, and Enforcement Guidelines be removed, and the remainder adopted as Yearnā€™s code of conduct, in the belief that people are able to read and understand value statements without them being accompanied by an implied threat.

4 Likes
#15

I agree that there should not be threats, but rather recommendations. Ultimately it comes down to personal responsibility.

#16

This code of conduct has been highly controversial among other open source projects, I canā€™t see why this needs to be enforced.

Some reference: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6918
https://itsfoss.com/linux-code-of-conduct/
https://www.i-programmer.info/news/136-open-source/12342-insane-linux-kernel-patches-resulting-from-code-of-conduct.html
http://nocodeofconduct.com/

#17

For the above tweet SJWs tried to have this Opal core maintener from the project.
We should not open Yearn to to such these kind of ideological attacks.
I am against the enforcing of the above CoC.

1 Like
#18

Voting is concluded with 91.71% for.