Contribution Guidelines

Version from 18.03.2022

Introduction

These contribution guidelines apply to all spaces managed by the FAForever project, including IRC, Forum, Discord, Zulip, issue trackers, wikis, blogs, Twitter, YouTube, Twitch, and any other communication channel used by contributors.

We expect these guidelines to be honored by everyone who contributes to the FAForever community formally or informally, or claims any affiliation with the Association and especially when representing FAF, in any role.

These guidelines are not exhaustive or complete. They serve to distill our common understanding of a collaborative, shared environment and goals. We expect them to be followed in spirit as much as in the letter, so that they can enrich all of us and the technical communities in which we participate. They may be supplemented by further rules specifying desired and undesired behaviour in certain areas.

The Rules of the FAForever community also apply to contributors.

Specific Guidelines

We strive to:

1. Be open. We invite anyone to participate in our community. We preferably use public methods of communication for project-related messages, unless discussing something sensitive. This applies to messages for help or project-related support, too; not only is a public support request much more likely to result in an answer to a question, it also makes sure that any inadvertent mistakes made by people answering will be more easily detected and corrected.

2. Be empathetic, welcoming, friendly, and patient. We work together to resolve conflict, assume good intentions, and do our best to act in an empathetic fashion. We may all experience some frustration from time to time, but we do not allow frustration to turn into a personal attack. A community where people feel uncomfortable or threatened is not a productive one. We should be respectful when dealing with other community members as well as with people outside our community.

3. Be collaborative. Our work will be used by other people, and in turn we will depend on the work of others. When we make something for the benefit of the project, we are willing to explain to others how it works, so that they can build on the work to make it even better. Any decision we make will affect users and colleagues, and we take those consequences seriously when making decisions.

4. Be inquisitive. Nobody knows everything! Asking questions early avoids many problems later, so questions are encouraged, though they may be directed to the appropriate forum. Those who are asked should be responsive and helpful, within the context of our shared goal of improving the FAForever project.

5. Be careful in the words that we choose. Whether we are participating as professionals or volunteers, we value professionalism in all interactions, and take responsibility for our own speech. Be kind to others. Do not insult or put down other participants. Harassment is not acceptable.

6. Be concise. Keep in mind that what you write once will be read by dozens of persons. Writing a short message means people can understand the conversation as efficiently as possible. When a long explanation is necessary, consider adding a summary. Try to bring new ideas to a conversation so that each message adds something unique to the thread, keeping in mind that the rest of the thread still contains the other messages with arguments that have already been made. Try to stay on topic, especially in discussions that are already fairly large.

7. Step down considerately. Members of every project come and go. When somebody leaves or disengages from the project they should tell people they are leaving and take the proper steps to ensure that others can pick up where they left off. In doing so, they should remain respectful of those who continue to participate in the project and should not misrepresent the project's goals or achievements. Likewise, community members should respect any individual's choice to leave the project.

Diversity Statement

We welcome and encourage participation by everyone. We are committed to being a community that everyone feels good about joining. Although we may not be able to satisfy everyone, we will always work to treat everyone well.

No matter how you identify yourself or how others perceive you: we welcome you. Though no list can hope to be comprehensive, we explicitly honour diversity in: age, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, neurotype, race, religion, nationality, culture, language, socioeconomic status, profession and technical ability.

Though we welcome people fluent in all languages, all official FAForever communication is conducted in English. Translations may be provided, but in case of contradictory wording, the English version takes precedence.

Reporting Guidelines

While these guidelines should be adhered to by contributors, we recognize that sometimes people may have a bad day, or be unaware of some of the guidelines in this document. If you believe someone is violating these guidelines, you may reply to them and point them out. Such messages may be in public or in private, whatever is most appropriate. 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. Should there be difficulties in dealing with the situation, you may report your compliance issues in confidence to either:

• The president of the FAForever association: [email protected]
• Any other board member of the association as listed in our forum.

If the violation is in documentation or code, for example inappropriate word choice within official documentation, we ask that people report these privately to the project maintainers or to the DevOps Team Lead.

Endnotes

This statement was copied and modified from the Apache Software Foundation Code Of Conduct and it’s honoured predecessors.