I would like GNOME to have a code of conduct to:

1.
Make it easier to stop aggressive or rude behaviour. This discourages new
contributors, though I think we are pretty good compared to some less
user-centric F/OSS communities.

2.
Advertise to the world that we are already a pleasant welcoming community.

I think this is a big part of Ubuntu's success at getting new
contributors. But I'd like our code of conduct to be a little shorter and
I don't think we need a whole organisation to police it. At the least, it
should just be how we expect people to behave on mailing lists and IRC and
it could be up to the administrator of that list or channel to decide
whether somone's conduct is unacceptable. But maybe some people would be
reassured by the existence of some group that they could go to in extreme
circumstances.

Here's a simple start:
http://live.gnome.org/CodeOfConduct

What do you think? What else would you like to see there?

Murray Cumming
murrayc <at> murrayc.com
www.murrayc.com
www.openismus.com