Governance, Contribution Policy, and Code of Conduct.

I was about to comment on the new threads about core governance when I realized that all of them presume some knowledge of the structure we've adopted and have been using for some time in Node Forward.

Without discussing and being able to link to some kind of ongoing documentation I don't think the conversation threads will be very fruitful so I've gone ahead and written them up in this pull request.

They are adapted from Node Forward's fork where they are sections in the CONTRIBUTING file. Here I've put them in to their own files for clearer separation. All direct references to Node Forward have been removed so that this can be adopted by any project without confusion.

The premise is simple: the project employs a simple governance structure that can be the "final word" on contentious issues and, most importantly, owns the *contribution policy*. The contribution policy is intended to be somewhat fluid and adapt over time to the needs of the project. The current one is geared heavily towards growing the contributor base of the project because that's the biggest problem. You can imagine that after the project grows a large cohort of contributors this policy would change to adapt the challenges of distributing work among a larger contributor base.

This separation between *contributor* and *TC member* is a necessary one. Liberalizing the contribution policy has been an effective tool at growing new contributors in Node Forward and in other projects that have been employing similar policies for some time. Of course, contributors who spend a fair amount of time in the project and want to take on additional responsibilities will find themselves on the TC but the direct correlation of commit rights to being part of a sometimes boring and bureaucratic process of managing the project at a higher level is an unnecessary barrier to growing contributors.
> Intent isn't magic. If someone unintentionally insults, demeans, and harasses, we reserve the right to exclude them from participation.

Yes, it's not magic, but it absolutely does matter and is as important for making participation in NodeJS welcoming and inclusive. Any modern justice system such as the one here in the US and the one in England from which it was derived has given a lot of consideration of intent in determining culpability, so much so that it has it's own term Latin term, mens rea. Over hundreds of years of considering intent, people far more experienced in applying justice than anyone here have given it so much thought that they've determined many degrees of mens rea and what it ultimately means for the degree of punishment. 

> In other words, your suggestion weakens this code of conduct, and I disagree with it in principle. Projects with a clear code of conduct such as this one attract a broader diversity of input.

No, considering intent does not weaken it. It's merely a guarantee that those responsible for making determinations as to whether or not the CoC has been broken will consider both sides fairly. 

Earlier mikeal correctly stated:

>  I don't get to decide what makes women feel safe in the project and her experience is far more relevant than mine or other men's experiences and their opinions or speculations about women's experiences.

A corollary that follows from such an observation is that the same must apply to men as well. Gender issues strike both ways and I've been in this industry to have personally seen the destructive nature of the mob on an issue where no one wants is willing to be be more considerate, lest they risk being viewed as part of the "oppressors". This leads to an environment where all nuance is lost. 

I have personally witnessed the complete destruction of one former colleague's career thus far over a comment sent on OkCupid that while inappropriate in hindsight, was said in jest explicitly with a "j/k" followed by a paragraph or so of friendly conversation. The girl that received the message screenshotted only the inappropriate comment, which looked absolutely horrible out of context and and the Twitter mob went to town. The company made a decision to be tough and let the developer go over the issue with severance because actually being nuanced and trying to tell the true story would have put the company in a very hard position is any other issues were to come up in the future. They had to look tough to be able to point back in time and say "Hey, last time this happened, we were tough, so we can't possibly be bad guys this time around." 

Instead of reserving the right to be just and considerate, we're opting to be "tough on crime" because no one is willing to admit that publicly that there is often more to a conflict than meets the eye, especially when a mob is involved. Being "tough on crime" because you don't want to be seen as being soft has led to many people being unjustly incarcerated in the United States. Do we really want to adopt the same stance and create a situation where you can absolutely torpedo someone's entire livelihood over what may have been unintentional?

This is the reality of the "male experience" today. I am absolutely scared shitless of any woman who actively exhibits a "social justice crusader" attitude such as the one exhibited by people like Adria Richards [0]. In fact I was recently (like in the past two weeks) exposed to a scenario where I wanted to do the right thing.

There is a women on my team that is junior and often laments the lack of mentorship she gets and she attributes this to her gender. At the same time, she actively makes comments about gender disparity at work at almost every chance she gets. In fact she made such a comment in the middle of a meeting about 3 hours ago. Yeah, I get it, it sucks to always be the only woman on an engineering team. However, those that actively adopt a persecution complex attitude and are vocal about it create a bubble around them. I try to mentor her and teach her things whenever I have have the chance or when she asks, but I am also scared shitless of her. If I say one wrong thing and she takes it the wrong way, that could be the end of my job and possibly my career in this current atmosphere of being "tough on discrimination". 

Just last week we turned down a female candidate fresh out of school with no experience and that greatly upset her, so much so that she made a comment to me that was approximately "Apparently you can't get hired around here unless you have a dick". I was the only person around and only person who witnessed it. I personally was offended by the comment, but absolutely did not dare address it, lest I be seen as one of the oppressors. That evening I spoke to a close friend of mine who is also quite vocal about gender issues, but since she's not a colleague I felt comfortable talking about what had happened with her. 

I basically told her what happened and told her that I would love to provide mentorship, both technical and career-wise, but I'm scared. I'm scared that people will do exactly as we're discussing here and think it's okay to dismiss intent and context out of hand and adopt attitudes like this one:

> the burden of proof with regard to intent should be on the person who has offended

The reaction of my friend after I told her what happened and that how I'd ultimately like to find a way to provide my colleague with the mentorship that she desires completely surprised me. Here I am, trying to figure out how to help. Trying to measure my world carefully so as not to offend and my friend basically called me out as being wrong and that I just "didn't get it". What did I learn from that discussion? Don't touch gender issues with a ten foot pole and don't try to help my colleague because I have everything to lose and little to gain because it's highly likely that despite being careful, it's quite likely that I mis-step and it's misinterpreted because people don't care about intend and expect the burden of defense to be on me the offender. 

These attitudes are toxic. We all lose. Women lose and men lose. How are women supposed to feel welcome in tech if we create an environment where men don't feel comfortable working with women?

Mikeal, Isaac, I know both of you personally and we've spoken on many occasions. I'm one of the more senior javascript developers at the company I work for. I've contribute to open source. However despite all that, I still don't feel comfortable posting this comment under my real name. I admit that the situation I'm in at work is unusual, since many of the women I work with are as nerdy and socially awkward as the men. 

Bros in tech suck. They ruin the experience for everyone. But so do social justice crusaders. And blindly pandering to them by adopting a "tough on crime" attitude ruins the experience for everyone as well. 

This is what male experience with regard to gender in tech become. Personally, I cannot participate in a community that doesn't think intent matters and where those responsible would rather be kneejerk in their response than considerate in how conflicts are resolved.

I'm about to hit the comment button and morbidly curious to how my comment is going to be interpreted by people here. Am I going to get people belittling and demeaning my experience because I'm a guy in tech or will people genuinely consider the "male experience" that we're unintentionally creating? 

[0] http://amandablumwords.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/3/