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constitution.txt
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# The Lobsters Constitution
## What Lobsters Is
Lobsters is a wonderful link aggregator/discussion forum for people working in software engineering-related fields to discuss and share ideas relevant to our industry practices and culture. It is a place to teach and learn, and a place to compare notes on how to do things.
The posts we make should be:
* ...to learn about new programming and engineering techniques and ideas
* ...to learn about weird software and hardware hacks in the old sense of the term
* ...to learn about computer science and software engineering
* ...to learn about mathematics, statistics, and science beyond the level of popsci clickbait
* ...to learn about software and hardware history
* ...for professionals to compare war stories and employment information/opportunities
* ...for members to show other members their cool hacks and software projects (*not* products)
* ...to reflect on the philosophy and culture of engineering and programming and how that relates to our professions
* ...to debate with other members on any of the above and to be able to do so civilly and in depth
## What Lobsters **Is Not**
The things Lobsters *is not* is even more important. Lobsters *is not* a place:
* ...for advertising or promoting new products and services from non-members or new members
* ...for posting things whose value derives mainly from novelty (read: *news in most forms*)
* ...for posting political or politically-minded articles
* ...for posting things whose value derives from outrage (read: *most stories of unfairness or inequality*)
* ...for rabble-rousing and social calls-to-action
* ...for making empty comments and stupid/low-effort jokes
* ...for insulting and making ad-hominem attacks against other members
* ...for technical support (read: *questions you'd ask on Stack Overflow*)
Often, these are not necessarily bad, they are just not in the scope of our community.
## Code of Conduct
### Submission guidelines
* Submissions should be on topic and fit an appropriate tag(s). If a tag doesn't fit, it might not be appropriate to post to Lobsters.
* Use original titles sans extraneous bits on submissions--leave editorializing to suggestions. For content older than a few years, suffix the title with the year of publication in parens.
* Add context to submissions when the context is not clear from the title.
* Do not submit spam or low-value articles.
* Similar submission may be merged by mods. Message or comment if you think a submission could be merged.
* For discussion stories, consider asking open-ended questions over ones with concrete solutions.
* Only flag submissions when they are outside the above topic space--never out of disagreement.
* Use the "suggest" link to fix any title or tag errors you see in a submission.
### Discussion/commenting guidelines
* Treat people with respect and assume good faith.
* In discussions, providing sources and relevant articles is encouraged.
* Don't downvote for mere disagreement. Downvote for uncivil behvior or factual inaccuracy.
* Don't insult others with ad-hominem attacks, slurs, or personal attacks.
* Don't harass, intimidate, dox, troll, or spam.
* Don't make comments that are racist, sexist, discriminating of sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, gender identity, faith or lack thereof, cultural, national or ethnic identity or origin, or family status.
* Don't derail threads with off-topic or irrelevant comments.
* Don't make low-effort comments (jokes, puns, "me-toos").
* Don't be afraid to agree to disagree and move on.
* Don't get obsessed over karma. It's just a number.
These rules encourage polite behaviour when talking with other community members. Mods may take action in some cases, but as a community member *you** have a duty to maintain civility by contributing to discussion and downvoting problematic comments.
### When to contact Mods
Moderators are shown usernames and scores for every comment, so if you feel like someone is specifically downvoting your stuff out of some grudge, message a moderator to look into it.
### IRC guidelines
The same as the discussion guidelines--though IRC is more relaxed in tone and scope than the site. Off-topic banter is acceptable.
### Bans
In the event that someone needs to be removed from the community for rule violation, such as harassing the users or spamming, the moderation team will ban the user, and it will appear publically in the [moderation log](https://lobste.rs/moderations) with the reason. The banned users' comments will appear as deleted. Banning is at the discretion of the moderation team. In serious incidents like voting rings, sockpuppets, or other serious rule violators, the moderators can ban up and down the invite tree as deemed necessary.
## F.A.Q.
### Where can I get an invite?
If you don't know a community member to ask, you can check the [chat](https://lobste.rs/chat), which is frequented by lobste.rs members. Keep in mind that they may ask you to provide links to your online presence.
### What is a "low-value" article?
A low-value article:
* is not verifiable or clearly worded
* has a non-disclosed but strong bias
* is rehasing or parroting information readily found elsewhere
* lacks technical content
* is clickbait or a link to social media websites
* a link to another link aggregation website such as Reddit or Hacker News
* states opinions without supporting facts or analysis
* is a meme
* is a reactionary response (to some other article/event) lacking strong knowledge of a subject
Some example low-value sources are Business Insider, Techcrunch, Vice Motherboard, Infowars. Other link aggregators like Reddit and Hacker News do not count as high-quality sources.
In general, consider the Wikipedia [definition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources#Questionable_and_self-published_sources) for such things:
> "publications expressing views that are widely acknowledged as extremist, that are promotional in nature, or that rely heavily on rumors and personal opinions."
### What consitutues a spam submission?
* Repetitive posts related to a single topic can be seen as spamming.
* Promoting a product or service excessively, either your own or your employer's.
* Obvious spam (the kind of things you'd see in your junk mail folder).
* Off-topic submissions.
Note that these submissions by new accounts will be given less slack--we don't want to encourage people to join just to sell product.
### What are some examples of tags?
* If the post involves discussion about the Lobsters community or policies, use the `meta` tag.
* If a post is mostly humorous, use the `satire` tag.
* If a post's writing style is aggressive or angry, use the `rant` tag.
* If the post involves a software release, new library, or distro announcement, use the `release` tag.
* If the post involves talking about containers, consider the `virtualization` or `devops` tag.
* If the post involves F# programming, use the `ml` and `dotnet` tags.
* If the post is announcing a new service, consumer product, or SEO, it probably shouldn't be here.
To see all tags go to [here](http://lobste.rs/tags).
### How do I create a tag that doesn't exist?
If a tag doesn't exist, create a meta discussion for getting that tag evaluated by the communmity.
Put the rationale for creating the tag, and put links to stories that could use the tag. Controversial topics that people would like to filter are a good candidate, as would programming languages and high-level general concepts. If the moderators don't apply the tag to the back catalogue of posts, then you can use suggestion to do so.
### Does referencing employment information count as doxing?
If a person's employer is relevant to their expertise or contextual background, *and is public knowledge*, it's fair game to bring up.
### How can I judge a potential invitee's reputation?
For technical ability consider looking at:
Public code repositories and open source contributions (e.g. a GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket profile)
A personal website
Some other evidence of technical knowledge that they can share (e.g. instagram of projects)
You might want to look at how they've conducted themselves in other communities like Hacker News or Reddit. Ask yourself if you want to see that kind of posting here.
## Contributors and acknowledgements
This document would not have been possible without the help of the Lobsters site users and the lurkers on [#lobsters](irc://chat.freenode.net/lobsters) IRC.
Contributors (reverse alphabetical order):
* stip
* premysl
* nycatelos
* ngoldbaum
* meskarune
* Irene
* Church
* calvin
* brinker
* angersock