The OCaml development team and the user community are made up of a mixture of professionals and volunteers from all over the world. Diversity brings variety of perspectives that can be very valuable, but it can also lead to communication issues and unhappiness. Therefore, we have a few ground rules that we ask people to adhere to. These rules apply equally to core developers (who should lead by example), occasional contributors and those seeking help and guidance. Their goal is that everyone feels safe and welcome when contributing to OCaml or interacting with others in OCaml related forums.
These rules apply to the projects hosted in the GitHub ocaml organization, the discuss.ocaml.org forum, the caml-list@inria.fr mailing list, OCaml IRC, OCaml discord, physical events like OCaml Workshop, and any other OCaml-related space that adopted this Code of Conduct. A more comprehensive list of spaces is available at the code-of-conduct GitHub repository.
- Be friendly and patient.
- Be welcoming. We strive to be a community that welcomes and supports people of all backgrounds and identities. This includes, but is not limited to people of any origin, color, status, educational level, gender, sexual orientation, age, culture and beliefs, and mental and physical ability.
- 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 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's important to remember that a community where people feel uncomfortable or threatened is not a productive one. Members of the OCaml development team and user community should be respectful when dealing with other members as well as with people outside the community.
- Be careful in the words that you choose.
Be kind to others. Do not insult or put down other participants. Harassment
and other exclusionary behavior aren't acceptable.
- Violent language or threats or personal insults have no chance to resolve a dispute or to let a discussion flourish. Worse, they can hurt durably, or generate durable fears. They are thus unwelcome.
- Not everyone is comfortable with sexually explicit or violent material, even as a joke. In an online open multicultural world, you don't know who might be listening. So be cautious and responsible with your words.
- Discussions are online and recorded for posterity; we all have our right for privacy and online gossiping as well as posting or threatening to post other people's personally identifying information is prohibited.
- Remember that what you write in a public online forum might be read by many people you don't know. Consider what image your words will give to outsiders of the development team / the user community as a whole. Try to avoid references to private knowledge to be understandable by anyone.
- OCaml online forums are only to discuss OCaml-related subjects. Unrelated political discussions or long digressions are unwelcome, even for illustration or comparison purposes.
- When we disagree, try to understand why. Disagreements, both social and technical, happen all the time and OCaml is no exception. It is important that we resolve disagreements and differing views constructively. Remember that we are different. Different people have different perspectives on issues. Being unable to understand why someone holds a viewpoint doesn't mean that they're wrong.
- It is human to make errors, and please try not to take things personally. Please do not answer aggressively to problematic behavior and simply signal the issue. If actions have been taken with you (e.g. bans or simple demands of apology, of rephrasing or keeping personal beliefs or troubles private), please understand that they are not intended as aggression or punishment ― even if they feel harsh to you ― but as ways to enforce a calm communication for the other participants and to give you the opportunity to change your behavior. We understand you may feel hurt, or maybe you had a bad day, so please take this opportunity to question yourself, cool down if necessary and do not persist in the exact same behavior you have been reported for.
If you believe someone is violating the code of conduct, we ask that you report it by emailing the OCaml Code of Conduct enforcement team at coc-help@ocaml.org or, at your discretion, any member of the team. Confidentiality with regard to the reporter of an incident will be maintained while dealing with it.
In particular, you should seek support from the team instead of dealing by yourself with a behavior that you consider hurtful. This applies to members of the enforcement team as well, who shouldn't deal by themselves with violations in discussions in which they are a participant.
Depending on the violation, the team can choose to address a private or public warning to the offender, request an apology, or ban them for a short or a long period from interacting on one or all of our forums.
Except in case of serious violations, the team will always try a pedagogical approach first (the offender does not necessarily realize immediately why their behavior is wrong). We consider short bans to form part of the pedagogical approach, especially when they come with explanatory comments, as this can give some time to the offender to calm down and think about their actions.
The members of the team are currently:
- Louis Roché <louis@ocaml.org>
- Marcello Seri <marcello@ocaml.org>
- Raja Boujbel <raja@ocaml.org>
- Simon Cruanes <simon@ocaml.org>
- Sonja Heinze <sonja@ocaml.org>
We believe that participation in our community should not cause distress.
Communication can be difficult in online communities, and we recognize that
people may feel distressed even without a clear infraction of our standards. We
hope to make a community where discussing such situations personally with other
members can resolve such distress, but we recognize this may not always be
possible. If the Code of Conduct has not been violated but you wish to discuss
such an issue, please feel free to contact coc-help@ocaml.org.
If you have questions, feel free to write to coc-help@ocaml.org.
This text is adapted from the Coq Code of Conduct which itself was adapted from Django's code of conduct and the Speak Up! Community Code of Conduct.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License .