Good Conduct: How Django Modernized Its Code of Conduct with Dan Ryan

A Code of Conduct is only as strong as the community's trust in it. When it's time to revise one, the how matters as much as the what. Django's Working Group undertook a significant revision in 2026 — adopting CC3's expanded encouraged and restricted behaviors, adding explicit guidance on consent and impact versus intent, formalizing a graduated enforcement ladder, and even addressing the responsible use of AI-generated content. This was not just a find-and-replace; it required community input, DSF Board approval, careful sourcing from the PSF, OpenJS Foundation, Mozilla, and others, and an updated, transparency-first documentation process.

The talk opens with a look at what makes Contributor Covenant 3 meaningfully different from earlier versions — the shift toward encouraging positive behaviors, stronger language around impact versus intent, and explicit attention to consent and boundaries. From there, it digs into what Django's update actually changed in practice: new sections on encouraged behaviors, expanded restricted behaviors covering microaggressions, retaliation, and bad-faith reporting, a four-tier enforcement ladder with defined timeframes, and responsible use of AI-generated content. The middle of the talk covers the governance story. How we moved documentation into a version-controlled GitHub repository, establishing a formal proposal and approval workflow, knowing when to loop in the DSF Board, and how to communicate changes to the community without starting a firestorm. The talk closes with practical takeaways for any project considering a similar revision: how to source ethically from other communities, how to build in transparency without inviting endless bike-shedding, and what "done" actually looks like.

Following the talk we'll save a few minutes for Q&A with the working group.

This talk was presented by Dan Ryan at DjangoCon US 2026 in Chicago, Illinois, USA
https://2026.djangocon.us/talks/good-conduct-how-django-modernized-its-code-of-conduct/

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