Community Rules

This page is currently in a draft status

Below are the rules to consider when taking part within BookStack community spaces. These may change & evolve over time.

General Social Rules

The below applies when engaging in any part of BookStack community spaces.

  • Respect and be kind to others in the community, empathy first.
  • Try not to be a plonker/hindrance/annoyance.
  • Don’t demand the time and effort of others. It’s okay to ask, but avoid demands.
  • Any hate or attempt at division within our communities can result in a ban. You may receive warnings first depending on severity.
  • Any extreme hate or division displayed outside our communities can also result in a ban.
Politics

This is not a politics-free space, FOSS software is inherently political. Political discussion should however remain on-topic, and be done with positive & constructive intent, in-line with the rules above. Our communities should not be considered a political safe space for any kind of ideology, we welcome a range of views with the intent of hoping the best of people, and aiming to bring folks together around the project.

Use of LLMs/AI

The use of Large Language Models (AI services, “Generative AI”, etc…) is allowed in our communities as a tool, but we ask that no “AI thoughts” are used. All thoughts and ideas should be from a Human, with content provided under the responsibility of Humans. We don’t want to waste the time of our community members, by having to read the made-up thoughts, ideas and content of a computer. When we ask for details & input, we really want to know something that has been considered and thought about by the human we’re talking to, rather than the generic thoughts of a text generator which would, with enough coercion, be happy to describe the benefits of spreading dog muck on toast for breakfast.

Examples of allowed uses

  • Grammar/spell checking.
  • Code assistance (not significant generation, see below).

Examples of prohibited uses

  • Idea generation.
  • Issue and PR form/description writing.
  • Community message/response generation.
  • Language translation
    • Please instead write in your native language and allow the reader to use tools to translate/understand.
    • This allows us to better understand the original intent, and avoids changes/additions made to text.
  • Large-scale code generation
    • Light assistance is allowed but all code must be understood, readable by, reviewed by, and provided under the responsibility of, the human author.
  • Art asset generation.

Raising Issues

When raising issues, please do your best to select the most appropriate category, and to fill all detail requested. Project maintainers have to deal with a lot of issues which is time consuming but we’re happy to put in that effort if the effort is reciprocated.

Please be patient in waiting for a response, and understand a response or solution is not assured. If you need some level of assurance of response time, please see our support services.

Code Contributions

When contributing code, please avoid any expectation/assumption that your contribution will be accepted, unless previously agreed. Before spending time on a contribution, it’s best to discuss the contribution first via an issue or our community options, to get an idea if something is likely to be merged. While a new feature you’re adding may seem like a no-brainer to you, there may be wider reasons or considerations as to why we may not want to accept a contribution, especially in a more mature and stability-focused project like this. We may reject a PR for any reason.

Please only provide contributions if you have a legitimate interest in the project. Please don’t provide contributions for other interests, like increasing your developer profile, or for passing education class tasks. Handling contributions can take time, often much more than it would take for a maintainer to develop the same changes themselves. We’re happy to spend that time, as long as there’s legitimate interest & intent of the project, especially as that can more directly lead to longer term maintainers.

Maintainers

Be helpful and considerate to users and their contributions. Consider that any issue, report or pull request has likely been at the well-intentioned time & effort of the contributor.