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Code of conduct

Our pledge

We as members, contributors and maintainers pledge to make participation in this project a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of age, body size, visible or invisible disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, gender identity and expression, level of experience, education, socio-economic status, nationality, personal appearance, race, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.

We pledge to act and interact in ways that contribute to an open, welcoming, diverse, inclusive and healthy community.

Our standards

Examples of behaviour that contributes to a positive environment:

  • Demonstrating empathy and kindness toward other people
  • Being respectful of differing opinions, viewpoints and experiences
  • Giving and gracefully accepting constructive feedback
  • Accepting responsibility, apologising to those affected by our mistakes, and learning from the experience
  • Focusing on what is best for the community as a whole

Examples of unacceptable behaviour:

  • Sexualised language or imagery, and sexual attention or advances of any kind
  • Trolling, insulting or derogatory comments, and personal or political attacks
  • Public or private harassment
  • Publishing others' private information without their explicit permission
  • Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional setting

Boundaries and sovereignty

This deserves stating explicitly, because it is where a geographic data project predictably runs into trouble.

This repository contains national and subnational boundaries. Some of them are disputed, and those disputes are real, serious, and personal to people affected by them.

The project's position is procedural rather than political: boundaries follow the upstream source named on each dataset's page. The project does not adjudicate sovereignty claims and does not edit geometry to advance one. Disputed boundaries sets out how such cases are handled.

In discussion, that means:

  • Technical framing is required. "This boundary does not match source X, which the manifest cites" is actionable. "This boundary is an insult to my country" is not, however sincerely felt.
  • Nationalist advocacy is off-topic. Issues and PRs are for data, not for arguing the merits of a territorial claim.
  • Do not attack contributors over the geography. Someone who imported a dataset is not endorsing every line in it.

Issues that become vehicles for political argument rather than data correction will be locked.

Enforcement

Instances of abusive, harassing or otherwise unacceptable behaviour may be reported to the maintainers by opening an issue or contacting them privately. All complaints will be reviewed and investigated promptly and fairly.

Maintainers will respect the privacy and security of the reporter of any incident.

Maintainers have the right and responsibility to remove, edit or reject comments, commits, code, issues and other contributions that are not aligned with this Code of Conduct, and will communicate reasons for moderation decisions when appropriate.

Attribution

Adapted from the Contributor Covenant, version 2.1, available at https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/2/1/code_of_conduct.html.