GitHub Community Forum Code of Conduct

Overview and Purpose

Millions of developers host millions of projects on GitHub — both open and closed source — and we're honored to play a part in enabling collaboration across the developer community every day. Together, we all have an exciting opportunity and responsibility to make this a community we can be proud of.

The GitHub Community Forum is intended to be a place for further collaboration, support, and brainstorming. This is a civilized place for connecting with other users, learning new skills, sharing feedback and ideas, and finding all the support you need for your GitHub projects. By participating in this Community, you are agreeing to the same Terms of Service and GitHub Acceptable Use Policies that apply to GitHub.com, as well as this Community-specific Code of Conduct.

With this Code of Conduct, we hope to help you understand how best to collaborate in the GitHub Community Forum, what you can expect from moderators, and what type of actions or content may result in temporary or permanent suspension from Community participation. We will investigate any abuse reports and may moderate public content within the Community that we determine to be in violation of either the GitHub Terms of Service or this Code of Conduct.

GitHub users worldwide bring wildly different perspectives, ideas, and experiences, and range from people who created their first "Hello World" project last week to the most well-known software developers in the world. We are committed to making GitHub and the GitHub Community Forum a welcoming environment for all the different voices and perspectives here, while maintaining a space where people are free to express themselves.

Pledge

In the interest of fostering an open and welcoming environment, we as contributors and maintainers pledge to making participation in the GitHub Community Forum a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of age, body size, disability, ethnicity, gender identity and expression, level of experience, nationality, personal appearance, race, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.

Standards

Treat the GitHub Community Forum with respect. We are a shared resource — a place to share skills, knowledge, and interests through ongoing conversation.

The following are not hard and fast rules, merely aids to the human judgment of our Community. Use these guidelines to keep this a clean, well-lighted place for civilized public discourse.

Best Practices for Building a Strong Community

• Be respectful and considerate.

  • Be welcoming and open-minded. Other Community members may not have the same experience level or background as you, but that doesn't mean they don't have good ideas to contribute. We encourage you to be welcoming to new members and those just getting started.

  • Respect each other. Nothing sabotages healthy conversation like rudeness. Be civil and professional, and don’t post anything that a reasonable person would consider offensive, abusive, or hate speech. Don’t harass or grief anyone. Treat each other with dignity and consideration in all interactions.

    You may wish to respond to something by disagreeing with it. That’s fine. But remember to criticize ideas, not people. Avoid name-calling, ad hominem attacks, responding to a post’s tone instead of its actual content, and knee-jerk contradiction. Instead, provide reasoned counter-arguments that improve the conversation.

  • Communicate with empathy. Disagreements or differences of opinion are a fact of life. Being part of a community means interacting with people from a variety of backgrounds and perspectives, many of which may not be your own. If you disagree with someone, try to understand and share their feelings before you address them. This will promote a respectful and friendly atmosphere where people feel comfortable asking questions, participating in discussions, and making contributions.

• Contribute in a positive and constructive way.

  • Improve the discussion. Help us make this a great place for discussion by always working to improve the discussion in some way, however small. If you are not sure your post adds to the conversation, think over what you want to say and try again later.

    The topics discussed here matter to us, and we want you to act as if they matter to you, too. Be respectful of the topics and the people discussing them, even if you disagree with some of what is being said.

  • Be clear and stay on topic. Communicating with strangers on the Internet can be awkward. It's hard to convey or read tone, and sarcasm is frequently misunderstood. Try to use clear language, and think about how it will be received by the other person.

    This applies to sharing links, as well. Any links shared in the Community Forum should be shared with the intent of providing relevant and appropriate information. Links should not be posted to simply drive traffic or attention to a site. Links should always be accompanied by a full explanation of the content and purpose of the link. Posting links, especially unsolicited ones, without relevant and valuable context can come across as advertising or serving even more malicious purposes.

    Additionally, the GitHub Community Forum is for collaboration, sharing ideas, and helping each other get stuff done. Off-topic comments are a distraction (sometimes welcome, but usually not) from getting work done and being productive. Staying on topic helps produce positive and productive discussions.

  • Share mindfully. When asking others to give you feedback or collaborate on a project, only share valuable and relevant resources to provide context. Don't post links that don't add value to the Topic, and don't post unsolicited links to your own projects or sites on other user's threads.

    Additionally, don't share sensitive information. This includes your own email address. We don't allow the sharing of such information in this Community Forum, as it can create security and privacy risks for the poster, as well as other users. If you'd like to invite other Forum members to collaborate on a project or work with you, share a link to the repository in which the project you are working on exists. By sharing the link to your project repo - with some information on what your project is and what kind of help or feedback you're looking for - you can invite others to collaborate with you via issues or pull requests without having to share your private information. You can also add others as outside collaborators on your project repo to give them special permissions to help you develop your project.

  • Keep it tidy. Make the effort to put things in the right place, so that we can spend more time discussing and less time cleaning up. So:

    • Don’t start a topic in the wrong category.
    • Don’t cross-post the same thing in multiple topics.
    • Don’t post no-content replies.
    • Don't "bump" posts, unless you have new and relevant information to share.
    • Don’t divert a topic by changing it midstream.

    Rather than posting “+1” or “Agreed”, use the Kudos button. Rather than taking an existing topic in a radically different direction, open a new topic.

• Be trustworthy.

  • Always be honest. Don’t knowingly share incorrect information or intentionally mislead other GitHub Community Forum members. If you don’t know the answer to someone’s question but still want to help, you can try helping them research or find resources instead. GitHub staff will also be active in the Community, so if you’re unsure of an answer, it’s likely a moderator will be able to help.

What is not Allowed

• Threats of violence. You may not threaten violence towards others or use the site to organize, promote, or incite acts of real-world violence or terrorism. Think carefully about the words you use, the images you post, and even the software you write, and how they may be interpreted by others. Even if you mean something as a joke, it might not be received that way. If you think that someone else might interpret the content you post as a threat, or as promoting violence or terrorism, stop. Don't post it on GitHub. In extraordinary cases, we may report threats of violence to law enforcement if we think there may be a genuine risk of physical harm or a threat to public safety.

• Hate speech and discrimination. While it is not forbidden to broach topics such as age, body size, disability, ethnicity, gender identity and expression, level of experience, nationality, personal appearance, race, religion, or sexual identity and orientation, we do not tolerate speech that attacks a person or group of people on the basis of who they are. Just realize that when approached in an aggressive or insulting manner, these (and other) sensitive topics can make others feel unwelcome, or perhaps even unsafe. While there's always the potential for misunderstandings, we expect our community members to remain respectful and civil when discussing sensitive topics.

• Bullying and harassment. We do not tolerate bullying or harassment. This means any habitual badgering or intimidation targeted at a specific person or group of people. In general, if your actions are unwanted and you continue to engage in them, there's a good chance you are headed into bullying or harassment territory.

  Disrupting the experience of other users. Being part of a community includes recognizing how your behavior affects others and engaging in meaningful and productive interactions with people and the platform they rely on. Behaviors such as repeatedly posting off-topic comments, opening empty or meaningless topics or using any other platform feature in a way that continually disrupts the experience of other users are not allowed.

• Impersonation. You may not impersonate another person by copying their avatar, posting content under their email address, using a similar username or otherwise posing as someone else. Impersonation is a form of harassment.

• Doxxing and invasion of privacy. Don't post other people's personal information, such as personal, private email addresses, phone numbers, physical addresses, credit card numbers, Social Security/National Identity numbers, or passwords. Depending on the context, such as in the case of intimidation or harassment, we may consider other information, such as photos or videos that were taken or distributed without the subject's consent, to be an invasion of privacy, especially when such material presents a safety risk to the subject.

• Sexually obscene content. Don’t post content that is pornographic. This does not mean that all nudity, or all code and content related to sexuality, is prohibited. We recognize that sexuality is a part of life and non-pornographic sexual content may be a part of your project, or may be presented for educational or artistic purposes. We do not allow obscene sexual content or content that may involve the exploitation or sexualization of minors. If you have any questions or concerns about something you want to post, feel free to reach out and ask beforehand.

• Spam. Respect the GitHub Community Forum. Don’t post advertisements, link to spammy websites, ping or mention long lists of usernames inappropriately or otherwise vandalize the Community. This Community is meant for GitHub users to discuss projects, learn, and share ideas with one another - not for advertising or other spam-like content. Content that we deem spammy will be removed. Please see our GitHub Acceptable Use Policies for additional detail on spam and inauthentic activity.

• Copyrighted or illegal content. Only post your own stuff. You are responsible for what you post. If you post something you didn’t create yourself, you must have the right to post it. You may not post illegal content, including content illegal under copyright and trademark laws, links to illegal content, or methods for circumventing the law.

• Gratuitously violent content. Don’t post violent images, text, or other content without reasonable context or warnings. While it's often okay to include violent content in video games, news reports, and descriptions of historical events, we do not allow violent content that is posted indiscriminately, or that is posted in a way that makes it difficult for other users to avoid (such as a profile avatar, profile description, topic or reply). A clear warning or disclaimer in other contexts helps users make an educated decision as to whether or not they want to engage with such content.

• Active malware or exploits. Being part of a community includes not taking advantage of other members of the community. We do not allow anyone to use our platform in direct support of unlawful attacks that cause technical harms, such as using GitHub as a means to deliver malicious executables or as attack infrastructure, for example by organizing denial of service attacks or managing command and control servers. Technical harms means overconsumption of resources, physical damage, downtime, denial of service, or data loss, with no implicit or explicit dual-use purpose prior to the abuse occurring. Note that GitHub allows dual-use content and supports the posting of content that is used for research into vulnerabilities, malware, or exploits, as the publication and distribution of such content has educational value and provides a net benefit to the security community. We assume positive intention and use of these projects to promote and drive improvements across the ecosystem. Please see our GitHub Community Guidelines for complete detail on this section.

• Misinformation and disinformation. You may not post content that presents a distorted view of reality, whether it is inaccurate or false (misinformation) or is intentionally deceptive (disinformation) where such content is likely to result in harm to the public or to interfere with fair and equal opportunities for all to participate in public life. For example, we do not allow content that may put the well-being of groups of people at risk or limit their ability to take part in a free and open society. We encourage active participation in the expression of ideas, perspectives, and experiences and may not be in a position to dispute personal accounts or observations. We generally allow parody and satire that is in line with our Acceptable Use Polices, and we consider context to be important in how information is received and understood; therefore, it may be appropriate to clarify your intentions via disclaimers or other means, as well as the source(s) of your information.

• Anyone under the age of 13. If you're a child under the age of 13, you may not have an account on the GitHub Community Forum (or GitHub itself). GitHub does not knowingly collect information from or direct any of our content specifically to children under 13. If we learn or have reason to suspect that you are a user who is under the age of 13, we will unfortunately have to close both your GitHub Community Forum and GitHub.com accounts. We don't want to discourage you from learning to code, but those are the rules. Please see our Terms of Service for information about account termination.

• Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional setting. The GitHub Community Forum is a professional space and should be treated as such.

• Violation of Terms of Service. If your Github.com account is identified in violation of Terms of Service we will have to close your GitHub Community Forum account as well. Terms of Service also indicates that "One person or legal entity may maintain no more than one free Account" therefore additional free accounts created to inquire about flagged or suspended accounts in the community forum will also be removed.

Enforcement

What GitHub Community Forum Members Can Do

• If you see a problem, report it. Moderators have special authority; they are responsible for this Community. But so are you. With your help, moderators can be Community facilitators, not just janitors or police.

  When you see bad behavior, don’t reply. It encourages the bad behavior by acknowledging it, consumes your energy, and wastes everyone’s time. Just report it via "Report Inappropriate Content" in the Option Menu. If enough reports accrue, action will be taken, either automatically or by moderator intervention.

Our Responsibilities

There are a variety of actions that we may take in response to inappropriate behavior or content. It usually depends on the exact circumstances of a particular case. We recognize that sometimes people may say or do inappropriate things for any number of reasons. Perhaps they did not realize how their words would be perceived. Or maybe they just let their emotions get the best of them. Of course, sometimes, there are folks who just want to spam or cause trouble.

Each case requires a different approach, and we try to tailor our response to meet the needs of the situation. We'll review each situation on a case-by-case basis. In each case, we will have a diverse team investigate the content and surrounding facts and respond as appropriate, using this Code of Conduct to guide our decision.

Actions we may take in response to a flag or abuse report include, but are not limited to:

• Content Removal
• Content Blocking
• Community Forum Account Suspension
• Community Forum Account Termination

Community Forum moderators who do not follow or enforce the Code of Conduct in good faith may face temporary or permanent repercussions as determined by other members of the Community Forum’s leadership.

Contacting GitHub Staff

If, for any reason, you want to contact GitHub Staff, the Community Managers, Administrators, or Moderators of this forum privately, you can use our Support contact form. Contacting any member of GitHub Staff via unsolicited mentions or pings, or via channels other than the forum itself, or the Support contact form is strongly discouraged and may be considered a violation of our prohibition against harassment.

Let's work together to keep the forum a place where people feel safe to participate by being respectful of them and their time.

Legal Notices

Yes, legalese is boring, but we must protect ourselves – and by extension, you and your data – against unfriendly folks. We have a Terms of Service, which includes our Acceptable Use Policies, and our Privacy Statement describing your (and our) behavior and rights related to content, privacy, and laws. To use this service, you must agree to abide by our Terms of Service, GitHub Acceptable Use Policies and the Privacy Statement.

This Code of Conduct does not modify our Terms of Service—which includes our Acceptable Use Policies—and is not intended to be a complete list. GitHub retains full discretion under the Terms of Service to remove or restrict any content or accounts for activity that violates those policies, including because it is unlawful, offensive, threatening, libelous, defamatory, pornographic, obscene or otherwise objectionable, or violates any party's intellectual property or our Terms of Service. This Code of Conduct describes when we will exercise that discretion.

Data Retention and Deletion of Data

You may contact GitHub Support to request the deletion of your community forum profile. We will retain and use your information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements, but barring legal requirements, will delete your full profile (within reason) within 90 days of your request. For more information please see the GitHub Privacy Statement.