Mailing List Policies


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Introduction

The community mailing lists cover are divided among several topics and constitute one of the primary "places" where members of the OpenID and identity communities come together to confer about digital identity, technology and protocol development, security, user experience, community enrichment, and the spread of OpenID generally.

The community is comprised of individuals, representatives from companies, governments, and academic institutions, and technologists, designers, and all manner of interested person from all over the world. Therefore, critical to productive, useful, and inclusive discussions is an understanding of what kind of behaviors and contributions the community values and benefits from.

This document is an attempt to provide a guide describing expectations, etiquette, and techniques for creating a positive and constructive atmosphere.

Please read the entire document before your first post to one of the lists, as it explains the list policies and contains a few words about the kind of culture we've created and hope to maintain.


Policies


Offensensitivity

When posting to a OpenID mailing list, remember that your message will be sent to people all over the world. They all have likes and dislikes as individual as your own. They will also be offended by certain things which you may not find remarkable. While you can’t foresee every potential area of conflict, there are certain guidelines that are fairly obvious: avoid swearing, cultural insults, blasphemy, proselytizing, and things of any similar nature. If you wouldn’t say it out loud in front of your grandmother while in a place of worship, then you probably shouldn’t say it on the list either.

At the same time, recognize that you are receiving messages from people all over the world. They all have likes and dislikes as individual as your own. They will also not find remarkable certain things by which you may be offended. Odds are that they probably didn’t set out with the purpose of offending you, so, if you feel a rising sense of offense, try taking a deep breath and counting to a nice high number. If, after this calming break, you still feel you must say something, e-mail the poster directly (and not on the list) to explain your feelings calmly, reasonably, and above all clearly, without attacking them. They may be unaware of the effect of their words, so this is your chance to educate them. If you just flame them for being “insensitive,” you may get flamed in return and create in them a resolve to keep offending you, just because you are (from their point of view) so uptight and irrational.

Above all, remember that other people are about as likely to change their basic natures and habits as you are to change yours. You may at some point have to make a choice between tolerating other people’s views and participating in the list. Please make this choice privately, and follow through quietly. Thank you.


Credits

These policies were inspired by the microformats mailing list policies, which in turn were influenced by the css-discuss mailing list policies.

See also: Bulletin Board Ettiquette For New Users And Old Timers and the JavaRanch Guidelines.