[belorn]

I participated and co-ran a gaming community for about 10 years, and whenever drama occurred we added whatever behavior triggered it to the rule list. It grew, and grew and grew into a very large CoC. By a few year into it people caused drama over the rules, people "lawyer" over them, they got enforced selectively, people accused each other of favor-ism, splits occurred and the community almost killed itself over the rules.

When the game moved into a sequel we changed the rules. Now it says "Treat others with respect and courtesy", which don't really qualify as a CoC since its basically common sense. People see it as so obvious that it not even a rule, more of a guideline.

This new rule has since then been pretty stable. It keeps out exactly those who can't behave but welcomes everyone else. There has not been a single instance of arguments about selective enforcement or favor-ism in terms to how the rules get enforced.

My own experience from that seems very similar when people complain about CoC. Long CoC lists tend to create fear, uncertainty and doubt within the community. It creates tiers of people where different class of people get the rules enforced differently. This in turn create a deep seated distrust.