Without clear boundaries around conduct many communities become toxic. In gaming (playing and related projects) for example it pushes out girls and women, or at least to hide their gender.
Forums have long had rules, spoken or unspoken. Making them more explicit is helpful IME.
The point of explicit forum rules is more to control the mods than the users. Users don’t read them, they just pick up tacit knowledge from what gets moderated.
The most useful thing you could have in a CoC would be declaring who’s responsible for making decisions about it.
Forums have long had rules, spoken or unspoken. Making them more explicit is helpful IME.