wiki.status.im/docs/getting-started/code-of-conduct.md

Code of Conduct

This page outlines how you should govern yourself when participating in the Status community. For more practical tips and suggestions please refer to how to grow our Community.

This document is not a rulebook, and is neither exhaustive nor complete. The Code of Conduct serves to distil our common understanding that we are all responsible for maintaining and developing this shared environment and it’s culture of productive, collaborative, social responsibility. We expect community members to follow the spirit as much as the letter of this documentation in there dealings in the Status community.

Community

Status is about earning and showing respect for one another: the word itself captures the spirit of social esteem in a human community.

The Status developer community is a productive and agile place, that can welcome new ideas in a complex field. We wish to improve every process every year, and foster collaboration between groups with very different needs, interests and skills.

We gain strength from diversity, and actively seek participation from those who enhance it. This code of conduct exists to ensure that diverse groups collaborate to mutual advantage and enjoyment.

The Code of Conduct governs how we behave both in public and in private whenever the project or community will be effected by our actions. We expect it to be honoured by everyone who represents the project officially or informally, claims affiliation with the project, or participates directly.

##Watchwords: We strive to be collaborative, considerate, respectful and responsible. Below you will find some of the core watchwords that keep the Status community strong.

• Reciprocate
  Nothing is more important than to show appreciation for every and anyone’s contributions, big or small. We show reciprocation by saying thank-you, contributing ourselves or paying it forward.

• Be Considerate
  Our work will be used by other people, and we in turn depend on the work of others. Any decision we take will affect users and colleagues, and we should consider them when making decisions.
  When somebody leaves or disengages from the project, we ask that they do so in a way that minimises disruption to the project. They should tell people they are leaving and take the proper steps to ensure that others can pick up where they left off.

• If you don’t know Ask Nobody is expected to be perfect in this community. Asking questions early avoids many problems later, so questions are encouraged, though they may be directed to the appropriate forum. Those who are asked should be responsive and helpful. “RTFM” is not an appropriate response to an honest enquiry.

• Be Respectful
  Disagreement is normal and useful and not every idea should be treated equally; but disagreement is no excuse for poor manners. The Status community works to resolve conflict by assuming good intentions and we do our best to act in an empathic fashion. This doesn’t include allowing frustration to turn into personal attacks. A community where people feel uncomfortable or threatened is not a productive one, so we will challenge prejudice or hostility that could jeopardise the participation of any person in the project.

• Take Responsibility
  We can all make mistakes; when we do, we take responsibility for them. If someone has been harmed or offended, we listen carefully and respectfully, and work to resolve the problem. We expect participants in the project to resolve disagreements constructively. When they cannot, we escalate the matter to structures with designated leaders to arbitrate and provide clarity and direction.

• Be collaborative
  What Status produces is a complex whole, made of many parts and is the sum of many dreams. Collaboration between teams that each have their own goal and vision is essential. To be efficient and effective, and for the whole to be more than the sum of its parts, each team must make an effort to understand the system as a whole. Wherever possible, we work closely with upstream projects and others in the free software community to coordinate our efforts. We prefer to work transparently and involve interested parties as early as possible. Collaboration at all levels improves the quality of our work and we celebrate and value good collaboration both internally and externally.

Direction, Authority and Leadership

The Status community values discussion, information and decisiveness. As a meritocracy we often delegate decision making, governance and leadership to those we deem to be the most able and engaged candidates. We are each engaged, empowered and inspired by our shared vision, which itself is developed and enriched by informed discussion, deliberate action and active participation.

Decision making and Direction

• Decisiveness, Clarity and Consensus
  We all lead by example, both in discussion and in action. Leadership by example can be exercised by anyone, simply by taking action, there is no need to wait for recognition when the opportunity to lead presents itself. We encourage new participants to feel empowered to take action, to experiment when they feel innovation could improve the project and at times to lead.
  Sometimes not all of the data is available, or consensus on how to act is elusive, but a decision must still be made. We prefer to err, learn, and do better in future than to postpone action indefinitely. There is no guarantee of a perfect decision every time but the poorest decision is often to make no decision at all: clarity of direction has value in itself.

• Conflicts of interest We expect everyone to be aware of, and to declare, any conflict of interests; whether due to employment, other projects they are involved in, or financial interests. In such cases one should abstain or delegate decisions that may be, or even may seem to others to be, self-interested. We expect that everyone who participates in the project does so first and foremost with the goal of making life better for its users. When in the slightest doubt, ask for a second opinion. Perceived conflicts of interest are important to address. We must all act to ensure that decisions are credible, even if they may occasionally be unpopular, difficult or favour the interests of one group over another.

• Delegation (from the top) Status will explore the alternative governance models that ethereum can facilitate, but for the time being responsibility for the project starts with the "benevolent dictatorship" of it’s founders, who delegate specific responsibilities and the corresponding authority to a series of teams, councils and individuals, starting with the Community Council ("CC"). That Council, or its delegated representative, will guide development and arbitrate any development dispute. Nominations to the boards and councils are at the discretion of the Community Council, however the Community Council welcomes and will seek the input of the wider community before confirming appointments.

• Disagreements Disagreements, both social and technical, are normal, but we do not allow them to persist and fester specially if they may leave others uncertain of the agreed direction. We recognise that the project as a whole works better when we trust the teams closest to a problem to make the decision for the community. If we learn of a decision that we disagree with, we can engage the relevant team to find common ground, and failing that, we have a governance structure that can review the decision. Ultimately, if a decision has been taken by the people responsible for it, and is supported by the project governance, it will stand. None of us expects to agree with every decision, and as a group we highly value the willingness to stand by the project and help it deliver, even on the occasions when we ourselves may prefer a different route.

Authority

• Delegation is not Abdication, No matter who has been assigned a task, taken on a role or been offered or assumed responsibility - we all hold one another to account. The English word Status is a social concept and the Status.im development and user community is the result of our active social responsibility.

• Decent Status is not the same a rank and if the decisions, direction or actions of those who have been empowered with ‘authority’ is deemed destructive to the community the community as a whole shall prevail.

• Open meritocracy We invite anybody, from any company, to participate in any aspect of the project. Our community is open, and any responsibility can be carried by any contributor who demonstrates the required commitment, capacity and competence.

##Leadership "A virtuoso is judged by their actions; a leader is judged by the actions of their team." A leader knows when to act and when to step back. They know when to delegate work, and when to take it upon themselves. Leadership and authority are neither a right, a rank nor a title; but are a privilege, a responsibility and a mandate. A leader will only retain their ‘authority’ as long as they retain the support of those who delegated that authority to them. A leader's foremost goal is the success of their team and thus the project as a whole.

• Credit A good leader does not seek the limelight, but celebrates team members for the work they do. ‘Leaders’ may be more visible than members of the team but good ones use their visibility to highlight the great work of others.

• Teamwork As a project we gather opinions, data and commitments from concerned parties before taking action. We expect leaders to help teams come to their decisions in a reasonable time, to seek guidance or be willing to take the decision themselves when consensus is lacking, and to take responsibility for the implementation of decisions.

• Courage and considerateness Occasionally decisions may not be widely understood, have full consensus or even be popular. We value the courage to take such decisions, because they enable the project as a whole to move forward faster than we could if we required complete consensus. Nevertheless, boldness demands considerateness; take bold decisions, but do so mindful of the challenges they present for others. We equally value work to soften the impact of those decisions on those who do not agree. Communicating changes and their reasoning clearly and early is as important as the implementation of the changes themselves.

####License Status.im is a Free Software project and the individuals and communities around it are its custodians. We choose not to exclude others from using, understanding, modifying and distributing our work and in doing so we put our trust in one another to act in the best interests of the wider human community that Status.im is designed to serve. This licence holds the developers to account, in the knowledge that the software is a common trust and that it is a privilege, a responsibility to continue to develop it.

The Status Code of Conduct is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license and has been adapted from the Ubuntu Code of Conduct v2.0. You may re-use it for your own project, and modify it as you wish, just please allow others to use your modifications and give credit to Ubuntu and the Status Projects!