I'd rather have a hole in the organization than an asshole
- Some wise CEO
There are no success stories emanating from rules that attempt to manage human relationships.
Long and tedious set of rules that advertise "safety" and "inclusion" neither produce safety nor inclusion. Instead they produce fear and pariahs. Those kind of rules are often exploited by manipulative bad actors due to their inherent vagueness. Conjugated with their appearance of ultimate social good they make any valid critics seen as anti-social behavior.
A more productive alternative is to make people more resilient.
Therefore a more productive set of cultural values should be adopted.
- Guidelines over rules.
- Positive reinforcement over punishment.
- Education over scolding.
- Straightforwardness over feigned kindness.
- Guardrails over strong policing.
- Speaking out over avoiding hurting feelings.
- Don't be an asshole.
Note that these are phrased similarly to the Agile Manifesto.
This is on purpose, as a cautionary tale.
One of the main criticism of the Agile Manifesto is how it has been misapplied and caused mayhem in otherwise functioning organizations.
This is due to people misreading the tenets of the Agile Manifesto. Each of Agile Manifesto's and tenets are in the form of "X over Y" as opposed to "X instead of Y". For example just because a team should be more focused on producing working software doesn't mean there shouldn't be a comprehensive documentation nor does it mean that responding to change doesn't mean that planning is a waste of time. Documentation is still necessary for users and future developers. Planning will most likely save time and avoid easy pitfalls before identifying them just before a deadline.
Except for the last guideline, the cultural values of this "code of conduct" should be interpreted in the same way. Just because rules should be avoided, doesn't mean there shouldn't some rules like banning all racial prejudice. Just because an issue with someone's work needs to be pointed out doesn't mean oil should be added to the fire, e.g. by telling people to be retroactively aborted like a certain Finnish open source leader (you know who you are, and you know what you did).