LAVA Software Community Project Code of Conduct

Version 1.1 - September 2018

The LAVA Software Community Project (LSCP), the producer of the LAVA Software, has adopted a code of conduct for participants. This is intended to cover interactions and behavior everywhere within the project, including but not limited to its mailing lists, IRC channels and other modes of communication.

Be respectful

In a project of any size, inevitably there will be people with whom you may disagree, or find it difficult to cooperate. Accept that, but even so remain respectful. Disagreement is no excuse for poor behavior or personal attacks, and a community in which people feel threatened is not a healthy community.

Assume good faith

LAVA Software Contributors have many ways of reaching our common goal of reliable and scalable automated testing, which may differ from your ways. Assume that other people are working towards this goal.

Also note that our Contributors and Maintainers may not be native English speakers, or may have different cultural backgrounds.

Be collaborative

LAVA Software is a large and complex project; there is always more to learn within LAVA and automation. It’s good to ask for help when you need it. Similarly, offers for help should be seen in the context of our shared goal of improving LAVA.

When you make something for the benefit of the project, be willing to explain to others how it works, so that they can build on your work to make it even better.

Try to be concise

Keep in mind that what you write once will be read by hundreds of persons. Writing a short email means people can understand the conversation as efficiently as possible. When a long explanation is necessary, consider adding a summary.

Try to bring new arguments to a conversation so that each mail adds something unique to the thread, keeping in mind that the rest of the thread still contains the other messages with arguments that have already been made.

Try to stay on topic, especially in discussions that are already fairly large.

Be open

Most ways of communication used within LAVA allow for public and private communication. You should preferably use public methods of communication for LAVA-related messages, unless posting something sensitive.

This applies to messages for help or LAVA-related support, too; not only is a public support request much more likely to result in an answer to your question, it also makes sure that any inadvertent mistakes made by people answering your question will be more easily detected and corrected.

In case of problems

While this code of conduct should be adhered to by participants, we recognize that sometimes people may have a bad day, or be unaware of some of the guidelines in this code of conduct. When that happens, you may reply to them and point out this code of conduct. Such messages may be in public or in private, whatever is most appropriate. However, regardless of whether the message is public or not, it should still adhere to the relevant parts of this code of conduct; in particular, it should not be abusive or disrespectful. Assume good faith; it is more likely that participants are unaware of their bad behavior than that they are intentionally trying to degrade the quality of the discussion.

Serious or persistent offenders will be temporarily or permanently banned from communicating through LSCP’s systems. Complaints should be made (in private) to the administrators of the forum in question. To find contact information for these administrators, please see the documentation on getting support within LAVA.