Community Blog Guidelines
The community council has been discussing content and expectation guidelines for the blog on CiviCRM.org and as a result of these discussions we are proposing the following:
Welcome to the CiviCRM Community Blog
Welcome! At CiviCRM, you'll find a community of smart, enthusiastic people from around the world.
Our goal is to foster conversations that are helpful, informative, and inclusive. We want to hear from you and encourage your posts, comments, questions, and conversation on our community blog.
Above All - We ask that we treat each other with Dignity and Respect. We ask that you respect other people’s opinions, avoid profanity, offensive statements, illegal content, and anything else that might otherwise violate our Communications Moderation Policy, Code of Ethics and Community Guidelines.
Here are ways we can encourage healthy communications on all CiviCRM platforms (blogs, mattermost, etc.) including in-person and virtual meetings:
- Treat others with Dignity and Respect
- Be mindful of cultural differences - we are a global community. We should be mindful that not all words and phrases translate to have the same meaning. Please be mindful that different cultures may appreciate different levels of directness in their communication styles and that may impact how words are presented or interpreted.
- Use inclusive language (avoid Gendered and Ableist language) - Gendered language can be harmful to our community because it can signal that we assume that people’s participation in the community is determined by gender. The shift to gender-neutral language promotes gender equality. Please respect the pronouns that community members provide in their profiles. Ableist language can be harmful to our community because it can devalue challenges experienced by people with disabilities.
- Be constructively honest, and relentlessly optimistic - You can be optimistic and supportive by giving suggestions for how to improve their contributions, comments, or posts. By being helpful, you encourage people to accept feedback and act on it.
- Seek first to understand, then to be understood - Assume the best intentions of others and suspend judgement until you have invested time to understand their decisions, ask questions, and listen.
We are a global community of unique individuals who all have the right to feel comfortable. Other community members may not think what you think, believe what you believe, or see what you see. So, be polite and respectful in your interactions with others.
Our communications moderation policy
Our policy is in alignment with the CiviCRM Code of Conduct [https://civicrm.org/code-of-conduct] and Community Guidelines [https://civicrm.org/community-guidelines] which is grounded on the belief that the CiviCRM "community should be truly open for everyone. As such, we are committed to providing a friendly, safe and welcoming environment for all, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity, religion, preferred operating system, programming language, or text editor (or lack thereof)."
Although we may disagree, please be respectful of others at all times. Insults, threats or harassment of other individuals or organizations are prohibited.
CiviCRM will not tolerate, and reserves its right to delete, any posts or comments that:
- are defamatory, indecent, hateful, racist, xenophobic, homophobic, transphobic, sexist, heterosexist, disgraceful, vulgar or inappropriate;
- encourage or suggest illegal activity, announcements from labour or political organizations and unintelligible or irrelevant posts.
We are all an important part of the CiviCRM community, so if you see something that you think may violate our guidelines, please help us by reporting to the CiviCRM Community Council, communitycouncil@civicrm.org.
But please also respect the moderators. They are a small team of dedicated, caring humans working hard to make things better.
Here are things that will get your comment or blog post removed or may see your account temporarily or permanently blocked. Please note that this is not a comprehensive list and our moderators reserve the right to remove anything we deem inappropriate or in violation of our guidelines.
Spam: Regardless of if it comes from a human or a robot, spam will be deleted. This includes material that is more self or company marketing and promotion than sharing useful information for the community. Generally speaking, promoting your projects here will be treated like any other spam, although sharing your experiences will be appreciated.
Personal attacks: Don’t attack or insult another user. It’s not helpful and it doesn’t make CiviCRM a friendly place.
Doxxing: Don’t reveal someone else’s personal information.
Illegal activities: Posting links to illegal downloads, ways to steal service, and other nefarious activity.
NSFW (Not Safe for Work) material: Even images or links that could be considered borderline are not acceptable. A good rule of thumb is to ensure anything your share is suitable for anyone / everyone and our moderators reserve the right to remove any post deemed offensive. This goes for pornographic material, vile language, gore and generally gross stuff.
Racism, sexism, and other discrimination: Attacking entire classes of people is just like attacking a single person: we’ll ban you for it.
Trolling: "Trolling" is a complex term, but we know what trolls are and we won’t tolerate it. This includes taking a thread off-topic.
Spreading misinformation: We are not a platform for spreading conspiracy theories and misinformation and will remove posts promoting obvious falsehoods.
Commenting on someone’s physical appearance, voice, or style: Let’s keep discussion to the content, please. Even if you’re writing what you consider a compliment, it will be removed.
Multiple accounts and throwaway emails: We don’t allow multiple accounts per user. Using a disposable email address signals to us that you might not be here for the right reasons. You also may not create accounts designed to impersonate another person.
Cross posting or Redirecting posts: Avoid duplicate posts across different CiviCRM platforms where possible as it can fracture the conversation. Don't redirect the post to your personal, business, or organizational website if the primary result is to build clientele or sell a service by getting folks to your site. Keep the full content on the blog post when possible as it is intended to provide information or support to the CiviCRM community. There may be exceptions to redirecting posts as long as they are clearly marked as cross posts, and there's a need to redirect if its for certain technical details that have a narrow audience. Please ensure that any external links are to pages that are openly accessible and do not require an account or submission of personal details to view.
References
We would like to acknowledge the following sites whose considered community guidelines provided inspiration for ours:
Approved by CiviCRM Community Council 2021-10-13