Backplane Community Code of Conduct is forked from GoBridge CoC which in turn uses the Go CoC as the base document.
GoBridge CoC | Go CoC | Backplane Community Slack
If you feel comfortable, we encourage you to use your real name in the Backplane Community. We find it encourages openness and civility in discussions. However, this is not a requirement.
Admins may ask users to change their name / username if it conflicts with known public figures, impersonates other people, sounds like automated tools, contains inappropriate language, or other unclear cases.
We are working hard to keep the public spaces family friendly and as inclusive as possible. At the admins discretion, words that are deemed inappropriate or offensive will be moderated. Please reach out to the admin group for a list of words that are being moderated.
Users should flag inappropriate behaviour to moderators or administrators rather than addressing it themselves. This includes but is not limited to reporting: violations of this code of conduct, spam messages, messages posted in the wrong channel or category.
It is important that all users’ questions, answers and comments are in line with this CoC, as well as with the category and topic, or channel, they belong to. When deciding to approach a user, moderators and administrators must always assume intentions are good, which is usually the case. Over-moderation is harmful to the atmosphere of the community and should be avoided.
While in practice most actions from moderators and administrators will be friendly reminders, they should act on complaints/reports quickly and involve other team members if necessary. They should take appropriate, usually private, action if they see any abuse or harassment. They must be sensitive to cultural differences, time zones, etc., but take prompt action when necessary. A moderator is one who exists to serve the community.
Except in the most egregious cases, moderators will follow these guidelines:
- First, attempt to privately message the user and point out to them that their behavior violates our CoC. Include a link to the CoC in that message.
- If the user does not respond to a request, escalate to the private #admins channel on backplane.slack.com to discuss the incident with fellow community moderators.
- Once the issue has been discussed with the fellow community moderators, follow the reporting guidelines below.
In those cases of obvious, flagrant violations, moderators will remove the post immediately, and bring the issue to the attention of the private admin slack channel.
Although not explicitly called out in this CoC, we ask that all moderators be aware of and intervene in the case of spam.
Spam is a post or a series of posts where the content is primarily solicitation, nonsense, overly short/long, or off-topic. Posts where the content is not hand-crafted or is too generic/useless may also be considered spam. Spam accounts are user accounts which post spam content or are created in series to secure access to the site and its privileges, or both. Spam posts and accounts may be automated or manual. If a moderator notices multiple spam accounts in succession, the IP address may be blacklisted.
We realize spam can be hard to define in some cases, so we will rely on the community or moderators to identify and flag it and handle it appropriately. Obvious spam posts should be promptly deleted; non-obvious spam may be flagged for review. Users are encouraged to flag posts as spam to help bring them to a moderator’s attention.
Not all spam posts are by spam users. For example, a legitimate user account may be compromised. If a moderator notices a reputable user account posting spam, the spam post(s) should be deleted immediately and the user notified. If spam posts continue, the account may be suspended until the user can regain control of his/her account.
Commercial content is allowed if relevant to answering a question or keeping inline with a topic. More specific policies and guidelines governing commercial content forthcoming.
If someone is subject to or witnesses unacceptable behavior, or has any other concerns, they are strongly encouraged to notify an administrator or a Backplane core team member as soon as possible. Every reported concern will follow this workflow until resolved:
- Make contact by emailing [email protected]
- Your email message will reach the Backplane core team only.
- Reports will be confidential within the Backplane core team.
- Alternatively, you may contact one of the members of the Backplane core team directly if you feel more comfortable (see below).
- You will receive a response within 24-48 hours (very likely sooner).
- The group will review the incident and determine what happened.
- They may reach out to other community members for more context.
- The team will reach a decision as to how to act. These include:
- Nothing.
- A private reprimand from the Backplane team to the individual(s) involved.
- An imposed vacation (i.e. asking someone to "take a week off" from all Backplane moderated properties).
- A request for a private or public apology.
- A temporary or permanent ban from some or all Backplane moderated properties.
- Backplane core team will reach out to the original reporter to let them know what action we decided to take.
- Appeals to the decision may be made to the Backplane core team directly, or any member of the administration team thereof.
Below is the list of people who are administrators for our online communities. If you have any issues or need help, please feel free to reach out to anyone on this list. There is also the public admin-help channel on Slack where people can get help or clarification on any admin related issues.
The role of Backplane: (Core Team):
- They are the stewards for the different online communities.
- They have rights in the systems tied to the primary owner role.
- They act as administrators.
The role of administrators:
- They monitor the public forums, channels and threads for inappropriate behavior.
- They have full voting rights for decisions that affect the communities.
- They have rights in the systems tied to the admin role.
Primary Owner: Backplane ([email protected])
Backplane Core Team (Administrators): TBD