### Abstract
The following is an RFC for the Stacks Code of Conduct (Beta Versi…on). Please review, make comments and suggestions on the proposed code of conduct. Prior work on the Code of Conduct and relevant documents can be found at https://github.com/stacksgov/pm/issues/119. The proposal and relevant milestones can be found at https://github.com/stacksgov/Stacks-Grants/issues/27.
### Stakeholders
Stakeholders include all members of the Stacks community. Community members can be generally identified as members, contributors and leaders.
### Problem
There is not an official code of conduct for the Stacks community that has been reviewed or voted upon by the community at large. On April 17, 2020, the Blockstack PBC team adopted a Code of Conduct based on the Contributor Covenant model. https://github.com/blockstack/stacks-blockchain/pull/1436/commits/38847fcf63894f3620320b67c2efe8fbe0cd9cea
While the Contributor Covenant model is widely used in open source communities, there was no review or adoption of the April 17th code of conduct by the Stacks community at large. Even if the April 17th code of conduct is adopted by the community, there is no code of enforcement in existence. A code of conduct without a code of enforcement is useless.
### Solution
The creation, adoption or adaption of a code of conduct submitted to the community for review and decision making via voting mechanism as proposed by the Governance group grant proposal. https://github.com/stacksgov/Stacks-Grants/issues/27
### Anticipated Difficulties
**Freedom of Speech**
An important potential problem is how wide the scope of enforcement should apply given freedom of speech issues. Some code of conduct models espouse enforcement related to communication outside the community. In addition, some members of our community believe that enforcement and removal should apply if community members engage in bad behavior in another public space.
**Public Participation**
One anticipated difficulty is encouraging community participation in the code of conduct review and decision making process.
### Risks
- Potential for stalled decision making.
- Failure to represent all members of the community.
- Too broad or too narrow in scope.
- Need to repeatedly update.
- Lack of acceptance by the community.
### Stacks Code of Conduct - Beta
**Purpose**
A primary goal of Stacks Community is to be inclusive to the largest number of contributors, with the most varied and diverse backgrounds possible. As such, we are committed to providing a friendly, safe and welcoming environment for all, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, ability, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and religion (or lack thereof).
This code of conduct outlines our expectations for all those who participate in our community, as well as the consequences for unacceptable behavior.
We invite all those who participate in the Stacks Community to help us create safe and positive experiences for everyone.
**Open Citizenship**
A supplemental goal of this Code of Conduct is to increase open citizenship by encouraging participants to recognize and strengthen the relationships between our actions and their effects on our community.
Communities mirror the societies in which they exist and positive action is essential to counteract the many forms of inequality and abuses of power that exist in society.
If you see someone who is making an extra effort to ensure our community is welcoming, friendly, and encourages all participants to contribute to the fullest extent, we want to know.
**A Can’t Be Evil Ethos**
A root ethos of the Stacks community is “Can’t Be Evil’. This rallying cry represents a deep core belief in a user owned internet flanked by the pillars of privacy and self sovereign identity. We strongly believe in individual rights together with decentralization. This ethos is a centerpiece of our community and development.
**Our Pledge**
We as Stacks community members pledge to make participation in our community a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of age, body size, visible or invisible disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, gender identity and expression, level of experience, education, socio-economic status, nationality, personal appearance, race, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.
We pledge to act and interact in ways that contribute to an open, welcoming, diverse, inclusive, and healthy community.
**Our Standards**
Examples of behavior that contributes to a positive environment for our community include:
- Demonstrating empathy and kindness toward other people
- Being respectful of differing opinions, viewpoints, and experiences
- Giving and gracefully accepting constructive feedback
- Accepting responsibility and apologizing to those affected by our mistakes, and learning from the experience
- Focusing on what is best not just for us as individuals, but for the overall community
Examples of unacceptable behavior include:
- The use of sexualized language or imagery, and sexual attention or advances of any kind
- Trolling, insulting or derogatory comments, and personal or political attacks
- Public or private harassment
- Publishing others’ private information, such as a physical or email address, without their explicit permission
- Offensive comments related to gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, mental illness, neuro(a)typicality, physical appearance, body size, age, race, national origin, ethnic origin, nationality, immigration status, language, religion or lack thereof, or other identity marker.
- No racist, sexist, cissexist, ableist or otherwise oppressive behavior is allowed, casual or explicit. This includes any harmful language, behavior, or action toward people of color, trans folks, disabled and other marginalized identities in our community. These are violations of the Code of Conduct.
- Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional setting
**Enforcement Responsibilities**
Community moderators are responsible for clarifying and enforcing our standards of acceptable behavior and will take appropriate and fair corrective action in response to any behavior that they deem inappropriate, threatening, offensive, or harmful.
Community moderators have the right and responsibility to remove, edit, or reject comments, commits, code, wiki edits, issues, and other contributions that are not aligned to this Code of Conduct, and will communicate reasons for moderation decisions when appropriate.
**Scope**
This Code of Conduct applies within all community spaces, and also applies when an individual is officially representing the community in public spaces. Examples of representing our community include using an official e-mail address, posting via an official social media account, or acting as an appointed representative at an online or offline event.
**Enforcement**
Instances of abusive, harassing, or otherwise unacceptable behavior may be reported to the community leaders responsible for enforcement at [email protected]. All complaints will be reviewed and investigated promptly and fairly.
All community leaders are obligated to respect the privacy and security of the reporter of any incident.
**Enforcement Guidelines**
Community leaders will follow these Community Impact Guidelines in determining the consequences for any action they deem in violation of this Code of Conduct:
1. Correction
Community Impact: Use of inappropriate language or other behavior deemed unprofessional or unwelcome in the community.
Consequence: A private, written warning from community leaders, providing clarity around the nature of the violation and an explanation of why the behavior was inappropriate. A public apology may be requested.
2. Warning
Community Impact: A violation through a single incident or series of actions.
Consequence: A warning with consequences for continued behavior. No interaction with the people involved, including unsolicited interaction with those enforcing the Code of Conduct, for a specified period of time. This includes avoiding interactions in community spaces as well as external channels like social media. Violating these terms may lead to a temporary or permanent ban.
3. Temporary Ban
Community Impact: A serious violation of community standards, including sustained inappropriate behavior.
Consequence: A temporary ban from any sort of interaction or public communication with the community for a specified period of time. No public or private interaction with the people involved, including unsolicited interaction with those enforcing the Code of Conduct, is allowed during this period. Violating these terms may lead to a permanent ban.
4. Permanent Ban
Community Impact: Demonstrating a pattern of violation of community standards, including sustained inappropriate behavior, harassment of an individual, or aggression toward or disparagement of classes of individuals.
Consequence: A permanent ban from any sort of public interaction within the community.
**Attribution**
This Code of Conduct is adapted from the Contributor Covenant, version 2.0, available at https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/2/0/code_of_conduct.html.
Community Impact Guidelines were inspired by [Mozilla’s code of conduct enforcement ladder.](https://github.com/mozilla/diversity)
Language was incorporated from the following Codes of Conduct:
[Citizen Code of Conduct ](https://github.com/stumpsyn/policies/blob/master/citizen_code_of_conduct.md)licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/).
[LGBTQ in Tech](https://lgbtq.technology/coc.html) , licensed under a [Creative Commons Zero ](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)License
[Django Project Code of Conduct](https://www.djangoproject.com/conduct/), licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
[Rust Code of Conduct](https://www.rust-lang.org/en-US/conduct.html)
### References
**General**
[Our Culture](https://lgbtq.technology/culture.html)
[The Guide to Allyship](https://guidetoallyship.com/)
[Creative Commons: When we share, everyone wins](https://creativecommons.org/)
**First Amendment**
[Does Freedom of Speech Exist in Cryptocurrency Communities?](https://www.hackernoon.com/does-freedom-of-speech-exist-in-cryptocurrency-communities-uk6h31b7)
[First Amendment and Censorship | Advocacy, Legislation & Issues](http://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/censorship)
[Mahanoy Area School District v. BL - SCOTUSblog](https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/mahanoy-area-school-district-v-b-l/)
**Participation**
Working Open & Public Participation
[Open Leadership Training Series : Working Open](https://mozilla.github.io/open-leadership-training-series/articles/introduction-to-open-leadership/introduction-to-working-open/)
[IAP2 Spectrum of Public Participation](https://iap2.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/2018_IAP2_Spectrum.pdf)
[Blockchain for Cities - A systematic literature review](https://doi.org/10.1109/access.2018.2880744)
**Codes of Conduct**
http://safetyfirstpdx.org/resources/code_of_conduct.html
[Open Leadership Training Series : Write or Choose a Code of Conduct](https://mozilla.github.io/open-leadership-training-series/articles/building-communities-of-contributors/write-a-code-of-conduct/)
https://www.python.org/psf/conduct/
[Your Code of Conduct](https://opensource.guide/code-of-conduct/)
[HOWTO design a code of conduct for your community](https://adainitiative.org/2014/02/18/howto-design-a-code-of-conduct-for-your-community/)
https://www.djangoproject.com/conduct/
https://github.com/rust-lang/rust
https://zcash.readthedocs.io/en/latest/rtd_pages/code_of_conduct.html
https://electriccoin.co/code-of-conduct/
https://github.com/stumpsyn/policies/blob/master/citizen_code_of_conduct.md
https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/2/0/code_of_conduct/
https://lgbtq.technology/coc.html
**Moderation & Enforcement**
[How We’re Making Code of Conduct Enforcement Real — and Scaling it.](https://medium.com/mozilla-open-innovation/how-were-making-code-of-conduct-enforcement-real-and-scaling-it-3e382cf94415)
https://github.com/mozilla/inclusion
https://github.com/mozilla/inclusion/pull/257/commits/dd8e90dee2ddbf94f65f1ca44069fcc5cc0dd77c?short_path=cc202f7#diff-cc202f7c9ffb912918fe950a7752b1a44e05396bf8a2c3f962eeb36acdfb3eaf
[Centralisation is a danger to democracy — Redecentralize.org](https://redecentralize.org/blog/2021/01/18/centralization-is-a-danger-to-democracy)
[Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech](https://knightcolumbia.org/content/protocols-not-platforms-a-technological-approach-to-free-speech)
A reminder to everyone who hasn’t voted Stacks 2.1 Upgrade yet please go vote! Only a few days left!