[Savannah-cvs] [CodeOfConduct] first draft

[Beuc]

![This page is meant for Savannah Hackers]

When communicating with Savannah users, keep in mind that you represent the GNU 
project, and you need to give a good image of us :)

It may sound silly to describe precisely what "politeness" is. However it is 
very easier to forget about it when doing maintenance work day after day; there 
are also various views about the extend of a site admin privileges, and we'll 
expose what our view at Savannah is.

Here are a few points to keep in mind:

* Greet people. At minimum type the 5-letters "Hi,\n\n" at the beginning of 
your mails, you can't say that it takes too much time! :)

* When you contact somebody for the first time, introduce yourself, especially 
if this is outside the scope of project registrations.  If you have a @gnu.org 
address, it's nice to use it.

* Check your spelling; if you are not a native English speaker, people will be 
tolerant to small mistakes, but not to repetitive typos.  You can install 
spell-checker software, but you still need to re-read what you wrote before 
sending it.

* Try to discuss with people: we're here to educate people. In addition, people 
often take it bad when they feel they are given orders. We will remain firm on 
our positions, but we want people to comply with our hosting policies because 
we convinced them, not because we coerced them.

* `Assume good faith 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith>`_

* You are a site admin, but you are in no way a project admin; when you're 
interacting with a hosted project, always assume you have no privilege: you 
cannot add yourself as a member, you cannot subscribe to their private mailing 
lists or read their archives, etc.  Doing so would be considered extremely 
invasive by the project maintainers.  Consider that there is a difference 
between what you technically can do, and what you morally can do.  The moral 
prevails.


Discussion
==========

One admin on another forge mentioned in the past:

 ![Our forge] owe nothing to users. We do provide a service and we are glad to
 host a big amount of projects. But admins should always keep in mind
 we have nothing to beg.

This is IMHO a partial view: it forgets that projects also bring traffic and 
visibility to our website, and to our philosophy.

I'd consider the hosting/users relationship as a partnership, rather than a 
client/provider relationship.  And I mean it both ways.

-- Beuc


Links
=====

* `Ubuntu Code of Conduct <http://www.ubuntu.com/community/conduct>`_
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