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Inkscape Community Code of Conduct

Inkscape online communities are intended to be friendly, inclusive spaces for users to collaborate on the further development of Inkscape, share and discuss their creations, inspire each other and interact in constructive ways. To that end, we have established a set of guidelines that we believe will help foster such an environment. Anyone willing to follow these guidelines is welcome in our communities.

This code of conduct applies to all spaces managed by the Inkscape project. This includes internet chat, the mailing lists, the bug tracker, the web site, official Inkscape events and any other forums created by the project team which the community uses for communication.

Desirable behaviour

In your interactions with others, please do your best to follow these principles:

Be respectful and friendly. There's always a human very much like you at the other end. Always treat them respectfully and be kind to them. People are most productive in communities where they feel welcome and comfortable.
Ask for help when unsure, and provide help if you can. Even the best experts were once beginners. Asking questions early avoids many problems later, so questions are encouraged, though they should be directed to the appropriate forum. If you can, help users less experienced than you to bring their ideas to fruition, even if their problems seem trivial to you. For example, if a question is answered in the FAQ, provide a link to the relevant section instead of scorning them for not reading the FAQ.
Discuss reasonably. Keep unstructured critique to a minimum. Make sure any criticism you offer is reasonable, constructive and expressed in a polite manner, and don't take the criticism of others as a personal attack. Accept that you won't always be correct. Recognize that people have differences of opinion and that sometimes there is no single right answer.
Be responsible. Everyone makes mistakes from time to time—own up to them and be willing to work on fixing them. If someone has been harmed or offended, listen carefully and work to right the wrong.
Forgive. If you are wronged, be prepared to accept apologies and move on. Don't hold a grudge or seek to settle scores. Do not let minor offences escalate into large fights. Being vindictive hurts the community even if you are right, while forgiveness allows offenders to improve.
Give credit where it is due. Don't try to pass off others' work as your own. Many people share their creative work online mainly to be recognized. Not giving credit to the true author deprives them of that recognition and will severely harm your reputation when the plagiarism is discovered.
Use neutral language. Avoid words that others are likely to find offensive or excluding.
Disclose and address conflicts of interest. You should be aware when you have a conflict of interest due to employment or other projects you are involved in, and abstain or delegate decisions that may be seen to be self-interested. When in doubt, ask for a second opinion.
Step down considerately. When you leave a responsible position in the Inkscape project, do so in a way that minimizes disruption to the community. Tell people you are leaving and take the proper steps to ensure that others can pick up where you left off.
Know your limits. Inkscape is at the same time a very large project and a very tiny part of the world. Share your responsibilities and don't try to do everything at once. Take a break if you no longer feel like working on Inkscape. It's better to put things on hold for a while than to burn out.

Guidelines for user-submitted content

Content uploaded to the gallery should be related to Inkscape or the Inkscape Project (e.g. created with Inkscape, created for use with Inkscape or its website, showing how to work with Inkscape, etc.). We reserve the right to remove any content that does not seem appropriate or does not adhere to the following obligatory rules:

Art must be your own original creation or derived from artwork available under an open licence. We cannot accept submissions that infringe copyrights.
No nudity or graphic violence. (Note: we may allow this type of content once it is possible to tag it as such, but pornographic and/or illegal material would still be disallowed.)
No content that is explicitly discriminatory in nature.
No political agitation or totalitarian symbolism.

Unacceptable behaviour

The following actions and behaviours are deemed unacceptable:

Harassment of other users. This includes but is not limited to threats of any kind, insults, discriminatory language and jokes, unwelcome sexual attention, posting personally identifying information ("doxing").
Deliberate disruption: trolling, spamming, flaming, baiting, attention seeking, distribution of malware, any kind of attacks against the computing infrastructure of the Inkscape project or its collaborating organizations.
Distribution of illegal or pornographic material in Inkscape communities.
Extended arguments over what behaviours are and are not allowed under this code.
Advocating or encouraging any of the above.

Consequences of unacceptable behaviour

If a member of an Inkscape community does not follow this code, please report it to the appropriate moderators, even if you are not among the directly affected parties. Moderators will then take actions they deem necessary to protect the community. Repeated breaches of the code may result in temporary or permanent expulsion (banning).

Reporting

For breaches of the code of conduct occuring on the IRC channel, message one of the users with mod rights (your IRC client should show who has mod rights). For other breaches, contact the Inkscape leadership committee. Provide detailed information on what happened.

If you believe you have been unfairly penalized by a moderator, you may contact Inkscape's board. Decisions of the board are final.

Inkscape

Draw Freely.