This Code was approved by the Sage community by a vote which ended on March 31, 2024.
The Sage community is comprised of an international mixture of mathematicians, computer scientists, engineers, researchers, teachers, amateurs, and others with varied backgrounds. This diversity is one of our strengths, but it can also lead to communication problems and unhappiness. People who love working on Sage can more effectively collaborate with others if they follow this Code.
This document is complemented by a second, the Code of Conduct Committee Manual, which describes the roles and procedures for the Sage Code of Conduct Committee.
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Be friendly and patient.
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Be welcoming. We strive to be a community that welcomes and supports people of all backgrounds and identities.
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Be considerate. Your work will be used by other people and you in turn will depend on the work of others. Any decision you take will affect users and developers, so you should take those consequences into account when making decisions. Conversely, Sage is constantly evolving, and earlier decisions that were made in good faith may sometimes need to be reconsidered. Nonetheless, we should still appreciate the hard work done in the past.
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Be respectful and polite. Not all of us will agree all the time, but disagreement is no excuse for poor behavior and poor manners. We might all experience some frustration now and then, but we cannot allow that frustration to morph into personal attacks. It is important to remember that a community where people feel uncomfortable or threatened is not a productive one. Members of the Sage community should be respectful when dealing with other developers and users.
When we disagree, we should try to understand why. Disagreements, both social and technical, happen all the time. It is important that we resolve disagreements and differing views constructively. Being unable to understand why someone holds a viewpoint does not mean that they are wrong. Do not forget that it is human to err. Blame alone gets us nowhere, it is better to help resolve issues so we can all learn from our mistakes.
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We will not accept harassment or other exclusionary behavior, such as:
- Violent or intimidating threats or language directed against another person.
- Sexist, racist, or otherwise discriminatory jokes and language.
- Posting sexually explicit or violent material.
- Posting (or threatening to post) other people’s personally identifying information (“doxing”).
- Personal insults, especially those using racist or sexist terms.
- Unwelcome sexual attention or comments.
- Excessive profanity. Please avoid swear words; people differ greatly in their sensitivity to swearing.
- Repeated harassment of others. In general, if someone asks you to stop, then stop.
- Advocating for, or encouraging, any of the above behavior.
This Code of Conduct applies to all spaces managed by the Sage project, including all public and private mailing lists, issue trackers, wikis, and any other communication channel used by our community. It also applies to Sage Days and any other in-person or virtual events.
This Code of Conduct should be honored by everyone who participates in the Sage community formally or informally, or claims any affiliation with the project, in any project-related activities, and, especially, when representing the project, in any role.
This Code is neither exhaustive nor complete. It serves to distill our common understanding of a collaborative, shared environment and goals. Please try to follow this Code in spirit as much as in letter, to create a friendly and productive environment that enriches the surrounding community.
Sage welcomes and encourages participation in our community by people of all backgrounds and identities. We are committed to promoting and sustaining a culture that values mutual respect, tolerance, and learning, and we work together as a community to help each other live out these values.
No matter how you identify yourself or how others perceive you: we welcome you. Though no list can hope to be comprehensive, we explicitly honor diversity in: age, culture, ethnicity, genotype, gender identity or expression, language, national origin, neurotype, phenotype, political beliefs, profession, race, religion, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, subculture, and technical ability, to the extent that these do not conflict with this Code of Conduct.
Though we welcome people fluent in all languages, Sage development is conducted in English.
Standards for behavior in the Sage community are detailed in the Code of Conduct above. Participants in our community should uphold these standards in all their interactions and help others to do so as well.
We know that it is painfully common for internet communication to start at or devolve into obvious and flagrant abuse. We also recognize that sometimes people may have a bad day, or be unaware of some of the guidelines in this Code of Conduct. Please keep this in mind when deciding on how to respond to a breach of this Code.
For clearly intentional breaches, report those to the Sage Code of Conduct Committee (see below). For possibly unintentional breaches, you may reply to the person and point out this Code of Conduct (either in public or in private, whatever is most appropriate). If you would prefer not to do that, please feel free to report to the Sage Code of Conduct Committee directly, or ask the committee for advice, in confidence.
You can report issues to the Sage Code of Conduct Committee at [email protected]. Currently, the committee consists of:
- Nils Bruin
- J-P Labbé
- John Palmieri
- Viviane Pons
- David Roe
- Julian Rüth
If your report involves any members of the committee, or if they feel they have a conflict of interest in handling it, then they will recuse themselves from considering your report. Alternatively, if, for any reason, you feel uncomfortable making a report to the whole committee, then you can also contact individual committee members.
This section summarizes the most important points; more details can be found in the Code of Conduct enforcement guide.
The Sage Code of Conduct Committee will investigate and respond to all complaints. The committee will protect the identity of the reporter, and treat the content of complaints as confidential (unless the reporter agrees otherwise).
In case of severe and obvious breaches, e.g., personal threat or violent, sexist or racist language, the committee will immediately disconnect the originator from Sage communication channels; please see the manual for details.
In cases not involving clear severe and obvious breaches of this Code of Conduct, the process for acting on any received Code of Conduct violation report will be:
- acknowledgement that the report has been received
- discussion within the committee
- discussion with and/or feedback provided to the reportee
- mediation (if feedback didn’t help, and only if both reporter and reportee agree to this)
- enforcement via transparent decision by the Sage Code of Conduct Committee
The committee will respond to any report as soon as possible, and our goal will be to respond within 72 hours.
Potential consequences for violating the Sage Code of Conduct include:
- Nothing (for example if the matter has been resolved publicly while the committee was considering responses)
- Private feedback or reprimand to the individual(s) involved
- Warning the person to cease their behavior and that any further reports will result in sanctions
- A public announcement that an incident occurred
- Mediation (only if both reporter and reportee agree)
- An imposed vacation (e.g. asking someone to "take a week off" from a mailing list)
- A permanent or temporary ban from some or all Sage spaces (mailing lists, GitHub repos, in-person events, etc.)
- Assistance to the reporter with a report to other bodies, for example, institutional offices or appropriate law enforcement agencies
- Publishing an account of the harassment and calling for the resignation of the alleged harasser from their responsibilities (usually pursued by people without formal authority: may be called for if the person is the event leader, or refuses to stand aside from the conflict of interest, or similar)
- Any other response that the Sage Code of Conduct Committee deems necessary and appropriate to the situation
GitHub Community Guidelines apply:
- Report abuse to GitHub, Block a user from your personal account
- Manage disruptive comments,
- Lock conversations (requires Maintainer role or Organization Moderator role)
Google groups:
This document may be amended by a vote of the Sage community in the sage-devel Google group, with the exception of facts like the membership of the Sage Code of Conduct Committee, changes to URLs, or changes to email addresses: changes like that can be done via a normal pull request. Any pull requests involving this document should list the committee members as reviewers.
Portions of this are adapted from the SciPy code of conduct and the NumFOCUS code of conduct.