The Coq development team and the user community are made up of a mixture of professionals and volunteers from all over the world. Diversity brings variety of perspectives that can be very valuable, but it can also lead to communication issues and unhappiness. Therefore, we have a few ground rules that we ask people to adhere to. These rules apply equally to core developers (who should lead by example), occasional contributors and those seeking help and guidance. Their goal is that everyone feels safe and welcome when contributing to Coq or interacting with others in Coq related forums.
These rules apply to all spaces managed by the Coq development team. This includes the GitHub repository, the Discourse forum, the Zulip chat, the mailing lists, physical events like Coq working groups and workshops, and any other forums created or managed by the development team which the community uses for communication. In addition, violations of these rules outside these spaces may affect a person's ability to participate within them.
- Be friendly and patient.
- Be welcoming. We strive to be a community that welcomes and supports people of all backgrounds and identities. This includes, but is not limited to people of any origin, color, status, educational level, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, culture and beliefs, and mental and physical ability.
- Be considerate. Your work will be used by other people, and you in turn will depend on the work of others. Any decision you take will affect users and colleagues, and you should take those consequences into account when making decisions.
- Be respectful. Not all of us will agree all the time, but disagreement is no excuse for poor behavior and poor manners. We might all experience some frustration now and then, but we cannot allow that frustration to turn into a personal attack. It's important to remember that a community where people feel uncomfortable or threatened is not a productive one. Members of the Coq development team and user community should be respectful when dealing with other members as well as with people outside the community.
- Be careful in the words that you choose.
Be kind to others. Do not insult or put down other participants. Harassment
and other exclusionary behavior aren't acceptable.
- Violent language or threats or personal insults have no chance to resolve a dispute or to let a discussion flourish. Worse, they can hurt durably, or generate durable fears. They are thus unwelcome.
- Not everyone is comfortable with sexually explicit or violent material, even as a joke. In an online open multicultural world, you don't know who might be listening. So be cautious and responsible with your words.
- Discussions are online and recorded for posterity; we all have our right for privacy and online gossiping as well as posting or threatening to post other people's personally identifying information is prohibited.
- Remember that what you write in a public online forum might be read by many people you don't know. Consider what image your words will give to outsiders of the development team / the user community as a whole. Try to avoid references to private knowledge to be understandable by anyone.
- Coq online forums are only to discuss Coq-related subjects. Unrelated political discussions or long digressions are unwelcome, even for illustration or comparison purposes.
- When we disagree, try to understand why. Disagreements, both social and technical, happen all the time and Coq is no exception. It is important that we resolve disagreements and differing views constructively. Remember that we are different. Different people have different perspectives on issues. Being unable to understand why someone holds a viewpoint doesn't mean that they're wrong.
- It is human to make errors, and please try not to take things personally. Please do not answer aggressively to problematic behavior and simply signal the issue. If actions have been taken with you (e.g. bans or simple demands of apology, of rephrasing or keeping personal beliefs or troubles private), please understand that they are not intended as aggression or punishment ― even if they feel harsh to you ― but as ways to enforce a calm communication for the other participants and to give you the opportunity to change your behavior. We understand you may feel hurt, or maybe you had a bad day, so please take this opportunity to question yourself, cool down if necessary and do not persist in the exact same behavior you have been reported for.
Anyone is welcome to ask questions and bring answers, provided they respect the aforementioned rules. In addition we ask that
- you do your best to put your questions into their context by providing Coq code or pointers to it, and enough indications to understand where the Coq goals or error message come from.
- if you are running through educational material, we kindly ask you to explicitly state it, and that answers do not solve such exercises for you, but only provide hints.
Admins and moderators will, at their discretion, review and remove some content, and provide indications or warnings to users. Repeatedly not taking into accounts these warnings may result into a temporary or permanent ban.
Based on forum histories, short technical questions with brief code examples in the proper context are the most likely to receive useful answers. In contrast, long and open-ended questions or comments usually see less engagement. This is not to say that long questions or comments that otherwise abide by the rules are discouraged, only that users should carefully set expectations about what answers they are likely to receive.
If you believe someone is violating the code of conduct, we ask that you report it by emailing the Coq Code of Conduct enforcement team at coq-conduct@inria.fr or, at your discretion, any member of the team. Confidentiality with regard to the reporter of an incident will be maintained while dealing with it.
In particular, you should seek support from the team instead of dealing by yourself with a behavior that you consider hurtful. This applies to members of the enforcement team as well, who shouldn't deal by themselves with violations in discussions in which they are a participant.
Depending on the violation, the team can choose to address a private or public warning to the offender, request an apology, or ban them for a short or a long period from interacting on one or all of our forums.
Except in case of serious violations, the team will always try a pedagogical approach first (the offender does not necessarily realize immediately why their behavior is wrong). We consider short bans to form part of the pedagogical approach, especially when they come with explanatory comments, as this can give some time to the offender to calm down and think about their actions.
The members of the team are currently:
- Matthieu Sozeau
- Nicolas Tabareau
- Théo Zimmermann
If you have questions, feel free to write to coq-conduct@inria.fr.
This text is adapted from the Django Code of Conduct which itself was adapted from the Speak Up! Community Code of Conduct.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License .