What's good
First of, I like the Code of Conduct in concept and content. All single issues that I might have are already carefully worded in other answers. You stated a goal what you wanted to achieve with this Code of Conduct.
We needed to write for the best of folks in our community. Off-putting things tend to mostly come from folks who will probably only ever blow their top once. We have moderators to deal with the tiny fraction of people that never care about rules, so our code of conduct needs to mostly resonate with the overwhelming majority of people we really want to keep. We need less over-posturing for troll dispatching and more guides to help decent folks avoid more common pitfalls.
From my point of view that's a good CoC to reach that goal.
What's Concerning
My feedback however is concerned if that's the right goal. What is the CoC supposed to achieve? It's fed by the general problem by all policies that are longer than a paragraph. Nobody reads them.
“[...] Apple could put the entire text of "Mein Kampf" inside the iTunes user agreement, and you'd just go agree, agree, agree - what? - agree, agree.” - John Oliver
Be it Terms and Conditions, User Agreements, Terms of Service, Codes of Conduct of however they are called they are basically worthless documents until someone sues. Which is even more useless in this case since we've got a few million Stack Exchange users who've never heard or agreed to said Code of Conduct—unless you plan to force-feed it to every user with a mandatory accept box before continuing to use the site. Furthermore, I'm guessing, nobody wants to use this document to sue.
My Question: What's the CoC really for?
Can a CoC really replace a half-pager guideline on what's okay and what's not?
Be Nice
It has three bullet points in relatively easy to understand language.
The Code of Conduct
The new Code of Conduct has eleven bullet points and contains the words neurodiversity and instigated while proclaiming one shouldn't discriminate due to English fluency with the former not even in most modern dictionaries and the latter easily being replaceable by caused.
Even worse the bullet points are not contained within themselves. The bold typed start proclaims something different than the following sentences will:
Be friendly, clear, and constructive. Editing, commenting, and sharing feedback are healthy parts of our community. When giving feedback, avoid jokes and sarcasm -- tone is hard to decipher online. Be open to receiving constructive feedback.
The further sentences are trying to explain the bold stuff but are demanding something completely different. The ability to be friendly, clear and constructive has very few to do with the expectation of handling other people's feedback openly.
Additionally I wonder why only people here to help should be patient and only people looking for help should make others' lives easier?
By honest counting we'll get to about 12-15 bullet points with behavior requirements in the Code of Conduct, possibly based on user roles. That's longer than the creative commons license that legally covers our posts...
Again, that's okay for a Code of Conduct. Those are wordier documents since they are the modern insurance of employers to either sue employees if they violate it or at least being able to say publicly they told them to be better. As employee I have to sign that I read it and will act accordingly.
What's it good for?
Sure Stack Exchange can set up such a document and point to it if there's a shitstorm about an escalation of racial slurs in the comments. Goal achieved? :|
Meta can discuss that document forever but that won't change a thing. The people civilly discussing a Code of Conduct on Meta are not our problem. Which brings me back to my question, what's the CoC really for? Giving meta a great basis for discussion or reaching the goal that Be Nice originally set out to do? It's very well for the former but in my opinion a step back for the latter.
Why it cannot replace Be Nice
Airplane emergency check lists have at most 5-6 items. No good modern checklist has more because people can't remember more consistently. (Cf. [The Checklist Manifesto][1]) We as community and especially the moderators need that check list to point to. You've started alright with the tl;dr part, already anticipating that—well, nobody reads the full thing.
The problem is that the tl;dr is currently the boiled down rainbow unicorn part of the document. It says basically be a good person. It's missing, don't be a jerk. When was Be Nice used? Exactly, when someone wasn't. The CoC cannot be very well used for that. Most of the target group Be Nice was thrown at won't read that much text. The CoC sounds like nice background literature and the tl;dr version is a nice opener to set a communities tone.
However, the target group we need the current Be Nice for was forgotten. Jerks. With the rainbow unicorn "be a good person" version as opener and the linked CoC the people who need behavior guidelines will never pass the guidance, "don't be a jerk", or any of the unaccepted behaviors in the CoC. This cannot be stressed enough, they will not be read.
Let's have a look at racist comments for example.
Previously any racist comment failed to meet the criteria of two out of three points from a half-pager.
Now the reason to delete said comment is buried behind a preamble, in a bullet point list, on item seven, in a sub-enumeration of items which might partly require a dictionary (depending on English fluency).
Exaggerating a bit, will moderators in the future write after deleting an insult to an overweight person, "deleted comment due to CoC, Section 2, Sub-Section 3, Item 10"? That is not making it easy on anyone who wants to uphold any standard.
I very much prefer a hint to something simple, like Be Nice, Don't be a jerk. Maybe the current Be Nice is the best tl;dr the CoC can have.
Most times simplicity is key. That's why airplanes rarely crash.
I see the irony in my post failing that simplicity badly. But it's late and I didn't have time to write a shorter post.
[1]:https://www.amazon.com/dp/0312430000
