www/philosophy kind-communication.html

[rsiddharth]

CVSROOT:        /web/www
Module name:    www
Changes by:     rsiddharth <rsd>        18/10/12 23:34:09

Added files:
        philosophy     : kind-communication.html 

Log message:
        [RT#1328688] Add GNU Kind Communications Guidelines

CVSWeb URLs:
http://web.cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/www/philosophy/kind-communication.html?cvsroot=www&rev=1.1

Patches:
Index: kind-communication.html
===================================================================
RCS file: kind-communication.html
diff -N kind-communication.html
--- /dev/null   1 Jan 1970 00:00:00 -0000
+++ kind-communication.html     13 Oct 2018 03:34:09 -0000      1.1
@@ -0,0 +1,193 @@
+<!--#include virtual="/server/header.html" -->
+<title>GNU Kind Communications Guidelines
+- GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title>
+<!--#include virtual="/server/gnun/initial-translations-list.html" -->
+<!--#include virtual="/server/banner.html" -->
+<h2>GNU Kind Communications Guidelines</h2>
+
+<p>by <a href="http://www.stallman.org/";>Richard Stallman</a></p>
+
+<p>The GNU Project encourages contributions from anyone who wishes to
+advance the development of the GNU system, regardless of gender, race,
+religion, cultural background, and any other demographic
+characteristics, as well as personal political views.</p>
+
+  <p>People are sometimes discouraged from participating in GNU
+development because of certain patterns of communication that strike
+them as unfriendly, unwelcoming, rejecting, or harsh. This
+discouragement particularly affects members of disprivileged
+demographics, but it is not limited to them. Therefore, we ask all
+contributors to make a conscious effort, in GNU Project discussions,
+to communicate in ways that avoid that outcome &mdash; to avoid
+practices that will predictably and unnecessarily risk putting some
+contributors off.</p>
+
+<p>These guidelines suggest specific ways to accomplish that goal.</p>
+
+<p>Please assume other participants are posting in good faith, even if
+you disagree with what they say. When people present code or text as
+their own work, please accept it as their work. Please do not
+criticize people for wrongs that you only speculate they may have
+done; stick to what they actually say and actually do.</p>
+
+<p>Please think about how to treat other participants with respect,
+especially when you disagree with them. For instance, call them by the
+names they use, and honor their preferences about their gender
+identity<sup><a href="#f1"></a></sup>.</p>
+
+<p>Please do not take a harsh tone towards other participants, and
+especially don't make personal attacks against them. Go out of your
+way to show that you are criticizing a statement, not a person.</p>
+
+<p>Please recognize that criticism of your statements is not a
+personal attack on you. If you feel that someone has attacked you, or
+offended your personal dignity, please don't &ldquo;hit back&rdquo;
+with another personal attack. That tends to start a vicious circle of
+escalating verbal aggression. A private response, politely stating
+your feelings <em>as feelings</em>, and asking for peace, may calm
+things down. Write it, set it aside for hours or a day, revise it to
+remove the anger, and only then send it.</p>
+
+<p>Please avoid statements about the presumed typical desires,
+capabilities or actions of some demographic group. They can offend
+people in that group, and they are always off-topic in GNU Project
+discussions.</p>
+
+<p>Please be especially kind to other contributors when saying they
+made a mistake. Programming means making lots of mistakes, and we all
+do so &mdash; this is why regression tests are useful. Conscientious
+programmers make mistakes, and then fix them. It is helpful to show
+contributors that being imperfect is normal, so we don't hold it
+against them, and that we appreciate their imperfect contributions
+though we hope they follow through by fixing any problems in them.</p>
+
+<p>Likewise, be kind when pointing out to other contributors that they
+should stop using certain nonfree software. For their own sake, they
+ought to free themselves, but we welcome their contributions to our
+software packages even if they don't do that. So these reminders
+should be gentle and not too frequent &mdash; don't nag.</p>
+
+<p>By contrast, to suggest that others use nonfree software opposes
+the basic principles of GNU, so it is not allowed in GNU Project
+discussions.</p>
+
+<p>Please respond to what people actually seid, not to exaggerations
+of their views. Your criticism will not be constructive if it is aimed
+at a target other than their real views.</p>
+
+<p>If in a discussion someone brings up a tangent to the topic at
+hand, please keep the discussion on track by focusing on the current
+topic rather than the tangent. This is not to say that the tangent is
+bad, or not interesting to discuss &mdash; only that it shouldn't
+interfere with discussion of the issue at hand. In most cases, it is
+also off-topic, so those interested ought to discuss it somewhere
+else.</p>
+
+<p>If you think the tangent is an important and pertinent issue,
+please bring it up as a separate discussion, with a Subject field to
+fit, and consider waiting for the end of the current discussion.</p>
+
+<p>Rather than trying to have the last word, look for the times when
+there is no need to reply, perhaps because you already made the
+relevant point clear enough. If you know something about the game of
+Go, this analogy might clarify that: when the opponent's move is not
+strong enough to require a direct response, it is advantageous to give
+it none and instead move elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>Please don't argue unceasingly for your preferred course of action
+when a decision for some other course has already been made. That
+tends to block the activity's progress.</p>
+
+<p>If other participants complain about the way you express your
+ideas, please make an effort to cater to them. You can find ways to
+express the same points while making others more comfortable. You are
+more likely to persuade others if you don't arouse ire about secondary
+things.</p>
+
+<p>Please don't raise unrelated political issues in GNU Project
+discussions, because they are off-topic. The only political positions
+that the GNU Project endorses are (1) that users should have control
+of their own computing (for instance, through free software) and (2)
+supporting basic human rights in computing. We don't require you as a
+contributor to agree with these two points, but you do need to accept
+that our decisions will be based on them.</p>
+
+<p>By making an effort to follow these guidelines, we will encourage
+more contribution to our projects, and our discussions will be
+friendlier and reach conclusions more easily.</p>
+
+<h3 style="font-size:1em">Footnote</h3>
+<ol>
+  <li id="f1">
+    <p>There are various ways to express gender neutrality in
+      third-person singular pronouns in English; you do not have to
+      use &ldquo;they&rdquo;. One other method is described in
+      <a href="https://stallman.org/articles/genderless-pronouns.html";>
+        https://stallman.org/articles/genderless-pronouns.html</a>.</p>
+  </li>
+</ol>
+
+</div><!-- for id="content", starts in the include above -->
+<!--#include virtual="/server/footer.html" -->
+<div id="footer">
+<div class="unprintable">
+
+<p>Please send general FSF &amp; GNU inquiries to
+<a href="mailto:address@hidden";>&lt;address@hidden&gt;</a>.
+There are also <a href="/contact/">other ways to contact</a>
+the FSF.  Broken links and other corrections or suggestions can be sent
+to <a href="mailto:address@hidden";>&lt;address@hidden&gt;</a>.</p>
+
+<p><!-- TRANSLATORS: Ignore the original text in this paragraph,
+        replace it with the translation of these two:
+
+        We work hard and do our best to provide accurate, good quality
+        translations.  However, we are not exempt from imperfection.
+        Please send your comments and general suggestions in this regard
+        to <a href="mailto:address@hidden";>
+        &lt;address@hidden&gt;</a>.</p>
+
+        <p>For information on coordinating and submitting translations of
+        our web pages, see <a
+        href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations
+        README</a>. -->
+Please see the <a
+href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations
+README</a> for information on coordinating and submitting translations
+of this article.</p>
+</div>
+
+<!-- Regarding copyright, in general, standalone pages (as opposed to
+     files generated as part of manuals) on the GNU web server should
+     be under CC BY-ND 4.0.  Please do NOT change or remove this
+     without talking with the webmasters or licensing team first.
+     Please make sure the copyright date is consistent with the
+     document.  For web pages, it is ok to list just the latest year the
+     document was modified, or published.
+     
+     If you wish to list earlier years, that is ok too.
+     Either "2001, 2002, 2003" or "2001-2003" are ok for specifying
+     years, as long as each year in the range is in fact a copyrightable
+     year, i.e., a year in which the document was published (including
+     being publicly visible on the web or in a revision control system).
+     
+     There is more detail about copyright years in the GNU Maintainers
+     Information document, www.gnu.org/prep/maintain. -->
+
+<p>Copyright &copy; 2018 Free Software Foundation, Inc.</p>
+
+<p>This page is licensed under a <a rel="license"
+href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/";>Creative
+Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.</p>
+
+<!--#include virtual="/server/bottom-notes.html" -->
+
+<p class="unprintable">Updated:
+<!-- timestamp start -->
+$Date: 2018/10/13 03:34:09 $
+<!-- timestamp end -->
+</p>
+</div>
+</div><!-- for class="inner", starts in the banner include -->
+</body>
+</html>