> You absolutely need a code of conduct (laws) to solve a dispute between two people. That's the whole point of rules.
This is so counter to my experiences that I have difficulty responding. Have you really never resolved a conflict without appeal to rules? I find this hard to understand.
Rules exist only because systemic problems motivated their creation. You see a sign that says “no dogs” not because dogs aren’t allowed, but because of some systemic problem with dogs in the past. We shouldn’t invent additional rules to solve problems that may or may not exist. That way lies ridiculous bureaucracy.
For example, some organizations (non-profits, HOAs, etc) adopt parliamentary procedure for their meetings. Some don’t. The fact that an organization adopts parliamentary procedures tells you that the specific organization has had problems with people disrupting meetings in the past, or that people in the organization had that problem in other orgs.
You absolutely need a code of conduct (laws) to solve a dispute between two people. That's the whole point of rules.
>If you make one disparaging comment to someone, we can hope that they take that one comment in stride and move on.
This isn't behavior that needs to be tolerated, especially not when the goal of the community is to write software.