freedombone/code-of-conduct.md

Freedombone "Code of Conduct"

Be respectful

In any Free Software project with more than one participant inevitably there may be people with whom you may disagree, or find it difficult to cooperate. Accept that, but even so, remain respectful. Disagreement is no excuse for poor behaviour or personal attacks, and a community in which people feel threatened is not a healthy community.

Assume good faith

Freedombone Contributors have many ways of reaching our common goal of providing freedom respecting internet or mesh systems which may differ from your ways. Assume that other people are working towards this goal.

Be collaborative

Freedombone is a moderately complex project, though nothing big and professional like GNU. It's good to ask for help when you need it. Similarly, offers for help should be seen in the context of our shared goal of improving the system.

When you make something for the benefit of the project, be willing to explain to others how it works, so that they can build on your work to make it even better.

Try to be concise

If you're submitting documentation then keep in mind that what you write once could be read by many other people. To avoid TL;DR keep it as short and concise as possible. This will also reduce the amount of translations effort needed.

If you're discussing an issue or bug, try to stay on topic, especially in discussions that are already fairly large.

Be open

Most ways of communication used within Freedombone (eg Matrix/XMPP) allow for public and private communication. Prefer public methods of communication for Freedombone-related messages, unless posting something sensitive.

This applies to messages for help, too; not only is a public support request much more likely to result in an answer to your question, it also makes sure that any inadvertent mistakes made by people answering your question will be more easily detected and corrected.

No spamming

Posting of adverts or other off-topic content in Matrix/XMPP or other public systems used by the project will be considered a violation of the code of conduct.

Respect others’ privacy

No stalking, unwanted personal attention, or unwelcome revealing or speculating about personal details of others.

In cases of sincere, good-faith curiosity about someone’s experience or identity, ask politely in a manner such that they will feel free to decline the request.

No hostile communication

No insults, harassment (sexual or otherwise), condescension, ad hominem, threats, or other intimidation.

Condescension means treating others as inferior. Subtle condescension still violates the Code of Conduct even if not blatantly demeaning.

No stereotyping of or promoting prejudice or discrimination against particular groups or classes of people.

In cases where criticism of ideology or culture remains on-topic, respectfully discuss the ideas.

No proprietary software

This is a Free Software project and there is no intention to support or endorse any software which is proprietary, including that which may be running on client devices. For example, supporting iThings or Windows users is out of scope of the project. It's possible that Freedombone may work with those systems, but if there are problems it's not within the scope of this project to resolve compatibility issues with proprietary browsers or platforms.

In case of problems

While this code of conduct should be adhered to by participants, we recognize that sometimes people may have a bad day, or be unaware of some of the guidelines in this code of conduct. When that happens, you may reply to them and point out this code of conduct. Such messages may be in public or in private, whatever is most appropriate. However, regardless of whether the message is public or not, it should still adhere to the relevant parts of this code of conduct; in particular, it should not be abusive or disrespectful. Assume good faith; it is more likely that participants are unaware of their bad behaviour than that they intentionally try to degrade the quality of the discussion.

Serious or persistent offenders will be kicked from chat rooms and any of their subsequent patches will be unlikely to be upstreamed. In this context "serious" means that someone is causing others to feel unsafe or be unable to contribute, for whatever reason.

This is not a big project and so there is no division of labor or special enforcement committee or bureaucratic process. Complaints should be made (in private) to the maintainer or chat room admin. The typical email address can be found in the source code headers. Preferably use GPG if you can, or XMPP with OpenPGP/OMEMO to bob@freedombone.net. XMPP messages are likely to get a quicker response.