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.
@Adikia In the majority of cases the CoC is used to enforce relatively minor editorial issues. In most cases the resulting *action* required is simply the removal or editing of the material. In this context, intent is inconsequential. If a piece of content is offensive to someone removing or editing it makes that person feel safe. If you believe that your intent is more important than making that person feel safe then I don't think you have much of an argument.

The case where someone is unintentionally offensive in a minor way and the result is that their career explodes is not a real thing. The case you mention is where someone was incredibly offensive and their career exploded. I would argue that this is impossible without having a hefty disregard for how she would feel about his comment.

What you're really doing is lamenting the death of a male dominated environment where you didn't have to consider how certain people would interpret what you say and do. Essentially, the new "male experience" is that you have to assume a context in which your actions are not interpreted by people similar enough to you to always understand your intent. You do realize that this is the world literally everyone who isn't a straight white male lives in? It's called context switching, and women and people of color do it constantly depending on the people they are around. Why aren't you ever worried about offending your male colleagues? It's because the social queues that express your intent are shared and you don't have to consider them before you act.

It's a very simple principal: "you are responsible for the predictable consequences of your own actions." If women can predictably be offended by your actions and you don't change them in order to accommodate you can't claim ignorance because you didn't *intend* to offend them because the ignorance is willful.