A community has to have a set of rules which most people agree on. One of the most common attacks in a moderated forum is "Oh but X did Y" and "thats not fair X can do it"
A CoC can be a simple way to "tap the sign" when someone is being a dick.
It also allows communities to set expectations at the start, not after someone has transgressed and pissed in the well.
In an ideal world, you'd just have a thing that says "don't be a dick" but that doesn't work for many and hilarious reasons. Engineers who who either have a god complex, parsing issues or empathy gaps (either learnt or inherent ) are notoriously difficult as a community to keep from getting into frothy arguments that colour everything and give off a bad smell.
I perceive "guidelines" or "rules" having a very different connotation compared to a "code of conduct."
See for, example, the SQLite team adopting the Rule of St. Benedict as their "Code of Conduct," getting criticized for it, and changing it to a "Code of Ethics" in accordance with the Rule about seeking accommodation with your adversaries.
Note also that Hipp pretty much just let any criticism for that wash over him and, from all public appearances, stayed cool and just kept working on his stuff while the loudmouths got bored and found other people to bother.
I mean kinda, but also not. CoCs just codify what the moderators think.
Even Hacker news has a CoC: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html its just called a guide.
A community has to have a set of rules which most people agree on. One of the most common attacks in a moderated forum is "Oh but X did Y" and "thats not fair X can do it"
A CoC can be a simple way to "tap the sign" when someone is being a dick.
It also allows communities to set expectations at the start, not after someone has transgressed and pissed in the well.
In an ideal world, you'd just have a thing that says "don't be a dick" but that doesn't work for many and hilarious reasons. Engineers who who either have a god complex, parsing issues or empathy gaps (either learnt or inherent ) are notoriously difficult as a community to keep from getting into frothy arguments that colour everything and give off a bad smell.
CoCs are a tool, that can sometimes help.