From c7222d2f186a3fd647a469e8cb956e981a759cbc Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Mo McElaney Date: Fri, 8 May 2026 13:32:04 -0400 Subject: [PATCH 1/2] Create power-of-consensus.md blog draft --- content/blog/power-of-consensus.md | 1 + 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+) create mode 100644 content/blog/power-of-consensus.md diff --git a/content/blog/power-of-consensus.md b/content/blog/power-of-consensus.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8b13789 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/blog/power-of-consensus.md @@ -0,0 +1 @@ + From 66e7f6189d5ea1e98cb2ee74bdfd68536d227dd9 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Mo McElaney Date: Fri, 8 May 2026 14:17:58 -0400 Subject: [PATCH 2/2] Power of Consensus blog draft --- content/blog/power-of-consensus.md | 23 +++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 23 insertions(+) diff --git a/content/blog/power-of-consensus.md b/content/blog/power-of-consensus.md index 8b13789..77e46e0 100644 --- a/content/blog/power-of-consensus.md +++ b/content/blog/power-of-consensus.md @@ -1 +1,24 @@ ++++ +title = "The Power of Consensus" +summary = "How We Built Contributor Covenant 3" +slug = "power-of-consensus" +type = "blog" +bylineDate = "May 2026" ++++ +[Contributor Covenant 3.0](https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/3/0/code_of_conduct/) marks a notable change in the way this globally adopted code of conduct was operated and maintained. This is by far the most open and collaborative process that the [Organization for Ethical Source](https://ethicalsource.dev/) has ever overseen to make changes to the Contributor Covenant, with diverse feedback loops. It was a global effort, spanning countries and industries, and we wanted to write about the process of writing version 3 because we felt like it was very special, not just to the project itself but to the open source movement. You’ll hear directly from Version 3 Working Group (WG) members like Maryblessing Okolie, who said, “This new version also emphasizes restorative justice, and we were keen on using inclusive language.” + +Since its creation in 2014, the Contributor Covenant has transformed the practice and experience of open source, helping communities establish norms and standards for how collaborators are expected to treat one another. Originally authored by Coraline Ada Ehmke, it was gifted to OES in 2021 for community governance and stewardship. + +To mark the 10th anniversary of Contributor Covenant, in 2024, OES launched a working group of volunteers from around the world to create a major new revision that reflected the evolving needs of adopting communities, inside and outside of open source. The volunteer working group was made up of OES members [Ben Sternthal](https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminsternthal/), [Casey Watts](https://www.linkedin.com/in/heycaseywattsup/), [Coraline Ada Ehmke](https://www.linkedin.com/in/coralineada/), [Gerardo Lisboa](https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerardolisboa/), [Greg Cassel](https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-s-cassel-623b9369/), [Maryblessing Okolie](https://www.linkedin.com/in/maryblessingokolie/), [Mo McElaney](https://www.linkedin.com/in/maureenmcelaney/), and [Rynn Mancuso](https://www.linkedin.com/in/rynnmancuso/). These collaborators operated under a consensus-based decision-making model, always striving to agree on language that preserves nuance while still being clear and meaningful to non-native English speakers. + +The WG members self-selected their own involvement in the OES Slack community. Basically, Coraline made calls in the public Slack channels about the intention to do this work, asking for help, and anyone could join in. Everyone was welcomed who had the time/capacity to help for whatever level of time they were willing or able to commit. Once our working group was formed, our ways of working evolved naturally. We operated on a consensus-based model of making decisions based on the [OES values](https://ethicalsource.dev/what-we-believe/). Previous versions of Contributor Covenant were authored by Coraline Ada Ehmke, but she had a lofty goal for version 3. Coraline said, “...(This is) bigger than one person. I wanted to make sure that we incorporated lived experiences of real-world practitioners to ensure that Contributor Covenant remains a valuable governance resource for communities everywhere.” For version 3, Maryblessing Okolie served as the project lead and was in charge of coordinating the meetings, survey construction and distribution, scheduling interviews with folks who wanted to offer feedback, and coordinating new translations. + +Through surveys, conducting interviews, and gathering feedback on shared drafts, the working group engaged with over two dozen open source maintainers, community managers, code of conduct committee members, and other adopters of Contributor Covenant, learning about the challenges of code of conduct enforcement today and where existing tools were falling short—directly from practitioners. Gerardo Lisboa said, “Our goal with version 3 was to have a very consistent voice throughout the document, and we sought to make sure the rules of addressing and repairing harm were scalable and well-balanced." + +The WG persevered through unexpected creative challenges and delays to ensure that everyone in the WG agreed with every word and change in the final draft of version 3. Maryblessing Okolie said, “It took us a year and six months to complete the entire draft while making sure people were available. It took that long because we wanted to make sure that we were incorporating every bit of feedback.” Everything was discussed and weighed against the needs of the whole. The WG utilized google docs for draft version control, instead of GitHub. Rynn Mancuso said, “We do not always do everything in the open on GitHub. One reason is structural - GitHub is not great at document management... Another reason that we did that is... we've received a lot of harassment from groups on the internet that were frankly invested in being able to cause trouble for a lot of people.” We wanted to ensure that contributors to the Contributor Covenant felt safe in providing their feedback in an environment that was protected from bad actors in the public. + +Greg Cassel noted that “The political climate is explosively polarized in ways which could amplify local and global existential threats. A code of conduct isn't a complete governance system, and must relate to inclusive and effective decision-making practices; however, it is a crucial foundation for prioritizing prosocial culture which enables us to focus on healthy and productive collaboration, instead of being sidelined by toxic behaviors and in-fighting.” So, we must help more groups to use Contributor Covenant and to update to the latest version, as well as support them with ongoing questions and struggles. Can we live up to this challenge? Well, we're certainly going to try! + +“Every bit of feedback we got, we took it seriously, we talked about it,” said Mo McElaney. We want to thank all of the fine folks who provided feedback on Contributor Covenant v3, which includes the following projects, organizations, and communities: +[AKASHA](https://github.com/AKASHAorg), [Amazon Open Source Code of Conduct](https://aws.github.io/code-of-conduct), [BeeWare Project](https://beeware.org/), [CHAOSS](https://chaoss.community/), [CNCF](https://www.cncf.io/), [DEV.HC](https://discord.com/invite/MwPvM4Vffg), [Fedora Project](https://fedoraproject.org/), [FLOSS Foundations](https://flossfoundations.org/), [Gnosis Guild](https://www.gnosisguild.org/), [Graphile](https://www.graphile.org/), [GraphQL](https://graphql.org/), [Grokability, Inc](https://snipeitapp.com/), [hREA](https://hrea.io/), [IBM](https://www.ibm.com/opensource/), [Idrinth](https://github.com/idrinth), [Jenkins](https://www.jenkins.io/), [Kubernetes](https://kubernetes.io/), [Linux Foundation](https://www.linuxfoundation.org/), [Machine Learning Prague](https://www.mlprague.com/), [Metagov](https://metagov.org/), [Nivenly](https://nivenly.org/), [Open {re}Source](https://openresource.dev/), [Open Source Diversity](https://opensourcediversity.org/), [Open Terms Archive](https://opentermsarchive.org/en/), [OpenJS Foundation](https://openjsf.org/), [OpenStreetMap](https://www.openstreetmap.org/), [Orange](https://orangedatamining.com/), [Python Software Foundation (PSF)](https://www.python.org/psf-landing/), [Qilin](https://qilinpta.github.io/Qilin/), [Red Hat](https://www.redhat.com/), [Symfony](https://symfony.com/), [TC39](https://tc39.es/), [The Document Foundation (LibreOffice)](https://www.documentfoundation.org/), [WordPress Open Source Project](https://wordpress.org/), and [zellij-org](https://zellij.dev/).