Since the INN nerds team works primarily with open source projects in public spaces, we think it's important to identify some community guidelines for how we like to work, what we expect from the people we work with and how to contribute to our projects.
- Be welcoming, friendly, patient, kind, courteous and respectful.
- Use your best judgment — if you're not sure about something, ask.
- We welcome contributions from people of any skill level and are committed to helping you build your skills wherever and however we can. Many of our open source projects use a github label "good for beginners" to flag some of the better places to start.
- Never be afraid to ask questions (even if you feel like they're too basic to bother us; you're not). We're all impostors.
- When you mess up, own up to your mistake and apologize (except in instances where apologizing would do more harm).
- If you repeatedly violate this code of conduct, you will no longer be welcome to contribute to our projects.
Give constructive criticism
- Be friendly and offer well-reasoned opinions of someone's work or ideas, whether your critique is positive or negative.
- When someone disagrees with you, expect an explanation and support for their position. Take the time to understand why you disagree.
- Dismissing an idea out of hand is unacceptable. An explanation and support for your position are required.
- Set personal conflicts aside when giving critique. Focus on the merits of the idea or work, not the person presenting them.
Create a safe space for learning
Everyone should feel comfortable saying, "I don't know." Everyone should feel comfortable asking questions and requesting help.
The Hacker School User's Manual does a great job of explaining how to create a safe space for learning:
Professionalism
Remember that this is a public space. Act accordingly.
Harassment and exclusionary behavior are not acceptable.
Harassment and exclusionary behavior include offensive verbal comments related to gender, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, religion, sexual images in public spaces, deliberate intimidation, stalking, following, harassing photography or recording, sustained disruption of talks or other events, inappropriate physical contact, and unwelcome sexual attention.1
1 From the Conference Code of Conduct
- Send us pull requests for bug fixes and small suggestions.
- For feature requests, create an issue to start a discussion. We'll decide together whether or not the requested feature gets built and where it fits into our product roadmap. Be sure and explain clearly why your feature request is essential and particularly why it would be useful to others beyond just you/your organization.
- For detailed information about our preferred code structure and styles, refer to our code style guide.
- To contribute to a repository using github.com directly, follow this guide.
This document is based on similar documents created by other organizations. Inspiration for this guide came from the following:
- Contributing to a Vox Media open source project
- SRCCON Code of Conduct
- Django Code of Conduct
- Conference Code of Conduct
- Hacker School User's Manual
If you have questions about the code of conduct or how to contribute, feel free to contact us: nerds@inn.org.