GCC Adopts a Code of Conduct

Has there been any project which had its community change its conduct after adopting a CoC? Or any projects which had a profound impact due a CoC?

I see that having CoC is getting standard with OSS projects, old and new alike. But have no idea if it actually does anything.

I agree. Establishing processes and telling people what they are is good practice. Just telling people not to do bad/unwelcome/etc. things by itself probably doesn't do much other than maybe remind someone at the margins to think twice before telling that joke.

Fair warning, I do not like codes of conduct. They're an authoritarian power play justified by fear.

Codes of conduct are more about changing who is in the community than about changing the conduct of existing community members. Periodically someone runs afoul of the ruling elite who pass judgement upon them behind closed doors, usually leading to excommunication. The atmosphere of knowing what you say will be reported upwards and optionally stripped of context and rephrased to your detriment promotes an environment of inclusivity and safety.

I'm not totally clear what "inclusivity" means at this point. It seems to be "excluding unpopular people and ideas", which should be termed "exclusivity". I've been known to say openly critical things about parts of our industry in public - basically because a lot of software dev is done really badly - and that sort of general negativity has no place relative to enthusiastically praising whatever nonsense is going on at the time.

E.g. you go to a talk on concurrency. You know it's nonsense, the code on the slides was wrong and the speaker has totally misunderstood the domain. So you talk with fellow attendees about how it was really interesting and excellent. One guy says "the first example deadlocks", and that makes someone feel uncomfortable, properly fixed by kicking him out of the conference. This is very inclusive and good for industry. Then you all go off to write code that doesn't work.

edit: can't believe I forgot the best part. If there's someone in the community you don't like - maybe their work makes you feel inferior, or they're a competitor in some sense, the burden of proof for triggering evisceration by committee is usually negligible. Tell some people they made you feel uncomfortable, let some of them talk you into reporting it and put them down as witnesses, bang - problem solved. Very convenient.

Most of the developed world has really clear ideas about the scary things - sexual assault, harassment and so forth, dealt with by a judicial system. So the honourable goals of the CoC systems could be achieved by following norms of society with the existing structures in place. That seems better to me.

Not necessarily a bad thing provided the individuals charged with enforcing it have a stake in the project, as opposed to just being moderators. In my own experience that's where the trouble often begins.

> One guy says "the first example deadlocks", and that makes someone feel uncomfortable, properly fixed by kicking him out of the conference.

Oh, please. That's just unfounded FUD-spreading.