Doesn't fully conform to GDS style

[subatoi]

Hello

It looks like some of this CoC doesn't fully conform to GDS language style. I noticed a similar problem for the CoC on alphagov/open-standards (https://github.com/alphagov/open-standards/blob/master/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md), which is also based on the Contributor Covenant, and so made some edits to that one which were accepted and merged. It was then brought to my attention that this, separate, CoC exists. I wonder if it might be possible to unify the two CoCs to avoid confusion such as in co-cddo/open-standards#52 (comment).

Many thanks

[willp-bl]

The code of conduct in this repo is for the entirety of alphagov. There was some discussion about modifying it when it was merged in, see #1

Have you considered trying to get those changes upstream? https://github.com/ContributorCovenant/contributor_covenant#contributing

[subatoi]

Ah I see your point, so we can't unify them.

The issue I would point out then is that the language in the CoC in this repo doesn't conform to GDS language style (e.g. bullet points not lowercase, use of the word "foster", quite a lot of passive voice). Much of the language in question is obviously directly from Contributor Covenant, because the same issues were what motivated the changes to the open-standards CoC.

I could raise a separate PR to make changes to this one in a purely linguistic sense, similarly but not identically to the changes in the open-standards CoC, and the two could then exist separately?

Alternatively, yes there was some discussion about trying to get the changes fed back upstream but it strikes me that that may be less straightforward.

[willp-bl]

This repo uses the code of conduct verbatim, with some additional clarifying text before it.

We would not seek to modify the text of standard software licences we use; and so when making changes to an off-the-shelf code of conduct we need to be careful about the potential effects of those changes. Additionally, by essentially forking the code of conduct with stylistic changes, it makes it harder to adopt new versions in future.

In the first instance I would recommend trying to get changes upstream, if that is not successful then perhaps there is a conversation to have. You never know, upstream might be quite happy to accept the changes.