Code of conduct for “FAIR Phytoliths: Increasing the FAIRness of phytolith data”

Welcoming

We welcome everyone and strive to create a friendly and positive environment. We encourage everyone to participate and are committed to building a community for all. We explicitly honor diversity in academic position, age, gender, gender identity or expression, culture, ethnicity, language, national origin, political beliefs, profession, race, religion, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and technical ability.

This code of conduct outlines our expectations for participants within the community, as well as the steps for reporting unacceptable behaviour. We are committed to providing a welcoming and inspiring community for all and expect our code of conduct to be honored.

Guidelines

Our open source community encourages members to:

Be friendly and patient.
Be welcoming. We strive to be a community that welcomes and supports people of all backgrounds, identities and academic position.
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 understanding. Remember that we are a world-wide community, so you might not be communicating in someone else’s primary language. If you think you are not understanding what the other person is trying to say, ask politelly to clarify.
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 is important to remember that a community where people feel uncomfortable or threatened is not a productive one.
Be careful in the words that we choose. We are a community of professionals, and we conduct ourselves professionally. Be kind to others. Do not insult or put down other participants. Harassment and other exclusionary behaviour are not acceptable. This includes, but is not limited to: violent threats or language directed against another person, discriminatory jokes and language, posting sexually explicit or violent material, posting (or threatening to post) other people’s personally identifying information (“doxing”), personal insults, especially those using racist or sexist terms, unwelcome sexual attention, advocating for, or encouraging, any of the above behavior, repeated harassment of others. In general, if someone asks you to stop, then stop.
Try to understand why we disagree. Disagreements, both social and technical, happen all the time. It is important that we resolve disagreements and differing views constructively. Remember that we are different. Diversity contributes to the strength of our community, which is composed of people from a wide range of backgrounds. Different people have different perspectives on issues. Being unable to understand why someone holds a viewpoint does not mean that they are wrong. Do not forget that it is human to err and blaming each other does not get us anywhere. Instead, focus on helping to resolve issues and learning from mistakes.

Reporting issues

If you experience or witness unacceptable behavior, or have any other concerns, please report it by contacting the organisers Emma Karoune (ekaroune@googlemail.com - English), Carla Lancelotti (carla.lancelotti@upf.edu - English, Italian, Spanish), Javier Ruiz-Pérez (javier.ruizperez.academic@gmail.com - English, Spanish, Portuguese), or the project’s administrators (open.phytoliths@gmail.com).

All reports will be handled with discretion. In your report please include:

Your contact information.
Names (real, nicknames, or pseudonyms) of any individuals involved. If there are additional witnesses, please include them as well. Your account of what occurred, and if you believe the incident is ongoing. If there is a publicly available record (e.g., a mailing list archive or a public IRC logger), please include a link.
Any additional information that may be helpful.
How do you want us to follow up (e.g., do you want to be contacted by phone call, email or videocall; or you do not want to be contacted at all but just inform us). We want you to feel as comfortable as possible regarding your experience and we will be happy to act in whatever manner you prefer.

Attribution & acknowledgements

This code of conduct is based on the code of conduct from the Open Life Science program.