Unofficial, work in progress: Stack Code of Conduct.
For more information on motivation and goals, please see the announcement blog post:
https://www.snoyman.com/blog/2018/11/proposal-stack-coc
To make suggestions, please use the issue tracker and/or pull requests on the files in this repo.
This repo is explicitly an unofficial part of the Stack community. An official policy would need to be approved by the full Stack team. Such a policy could then have enforcement that includes excluding people from repositories, mailing lists, and other official community resources. I will not conceit to make such decisions unilaterally.
My goal here is different. I am trying to establish some accepted standards for behavior of the Stack community in general. I am hoping for this to be broader than just official communication channels. I'm going to encourage improved communications across all mediums.
But I have no right to demand this of anyone, especially in general communications. Therefore this repository serves primarily to document how I believe people should act in the Stack community.
As I have done in the past, I will be available for people to privately express concerns about the behaviors of others. And while I will not make unilateral decisions on behalf of the Stack leadership, I will, as necessary:
- Reach out privately to request changes in behavior
- Publicly request changes in behavior
- Raise the issue with the rest of the Stack leadership and consider a more official response
Following the discussion on issue #1, it does not seem to be appropriate to use a standard Code of Conduct for this repository. The reason is that this repository is an unofficial set of guidelines, reflecting one person's recommendations and offer to intervene in cases where concerning behavior occurs.
Instead, the Code of Conduct can be stated as:
- Try to keep discussions civil, respectful, and where appropriate focused on the technical details. For further details, please see the communications guide.
- If there is concern about the communications occurring in the Stack
community, I (Michael Snoyman) am available to privately and
discretely receive those concerns. I can be contacted at
michael at snoyman dot com. - There is no official policy of consequences for offending behavior. I will strive in general to handle matters with care, and prefer corrective recommendations to punitive actions.
- There is inherently some ambiguity in some cases as to whether behavior is in fact uncivil or disrespectful. I will attempt personally, and request from others, to give participants the benefit of the doubt. This benefit of the doubt must be balanced against protecting the rights and desires of those participating in discussion with them.
- The above creates a fine line to walk, and will require some subjective decision making. I apologize in advance if I err in this process.