There is one thing I struggle with a bit. You write “Some may respond with concern or be against a code of conduct because of the loss of power and privilege it represents to them (whether they are conscious of this or not).” Generally you seem to identify loss of power and privilege as the only source of objection against adopting a CoC. I think this is a too simplistic view.

For example: our western societies do have a tendency to regulate more and more with laws and rules (including CoC). In consequence the number of trials seems to constantly be going up. On one hand this is a good thing, because (in theory at least) everybody has a chance to read what is written and can adhere to it. On the other hand it seems to foster a development where people use less and less of their own judgement and need to be taken by the hand and lead to productive behavior and interaction with their fellow humans. I view this as a loss because it seems to me people become less adult in the process. I do not see how me regretting that has anything to do with loss of power. For me that is a general tendency to infantilization and this is the exact opposite direction of what e.g. Buddhism tries to teach us.

I think your 4 purposes of a code of conduct process/program imply, but leave out, what I feel is the most important part: how to help the reporter (and or victim) feel safe.

I’ve seen so much struggle happen in defining the conducts (yes a required part of CoEs), yet the actual reason we all want to bother with this is that we have someone who has been harmed. Yes, we may never get agreement from the diverse community on whether harm has happened (a whole other post if I ever get to writing it), but once we start the implementation of this process, we have to devote time, resources to helping the person feel safe. There are lots of options here, many controversial, but the fact that most of the projects I’ve seen to develop a CoE/AHP have spent almost no time on what to do with the reporter/victim.

Yes, we need to devote time to the subject of the report, but I want to ensure, on the projects I work on to develop these codes spend enough time creating processes/policies, etc on how to help those that have been harmed.

In my limited observations, the people who mock CoEs and such do so because they are only thinking of how it’s going to harsh their fun. If we could get those people to focus on how to help victims, we’d likely get more support. They know this crap happens. But because most projects in this area spend so much time and voice on the bad behaviours, people lose focus on the fact that people need our help after the fact.

These comments are an “and”, not an “or” discussion. We need all of it.