Govnr is civic infrastructure for direct democracy. We are building tools that should help people deliberate, decide, and participate on equal terms, from small groups to large institutions.
In the interest of fostering an open, trustworthy, and inclusive community, we as contributors, maintainers, and participants pledge to make participation in this project a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of age, body size, caste, disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, gender identity and expression, level of experience, education, socio-economic status, nationality, personal appearance, race, religion, political viewpoint, or sexual identity and orientation.
We also pledge to approach disagreement in good faith. Govnr is about democratic systems, so debate is expected. Harassment, intimidation, bad-faith disruption, or attempts to silence people through abuse are not.
Examples of behaviour that contributes to a positive environment include:
- Demonstrating empathy, patience, and respect toward other people.
- Welcoming people with different backgrounds, skills, beliefs, and levels of technical experience.
- Giving and gracefully accepting constructive feedback.
- Focusing criticism on ideas, code, specifications, and decisions rather than personal attacks.
- Acknowledging mistakes, correcting them where possible, and learning from the experience.
- Prioritising the safety, dignity, and equal participation of the wider community.
- Being careful with claims about civic, legal, security, or political impact.
- Treating security, privacy, voting integrity, and accessibility concerns as serious even when they are inconvenient.
Examples of unacceptable behaviour include:
- Harassment, intimidation, stalking, doxxing, or sustained disruption.
- Trolling, insulting or derogatory comments, personal attacks, or inflammatory political baiting.
- Public or private harassment, including unwanted sexual attention or advances.
- Publishing another person's private information without explicit permission.
- Using sexualised language or imagery where it is not appropriate to the project.
- Deliberately misrepresenting people, decisions, votes, vulnerabilities, or project intent.
- Threats of violence, incitement, or encouragement of harm.
- Attempts to undermine democratic participation through coercion, targeted abuse, or intimidation.
- Bad-faith disclosure or exploitation of security, privacy, identity, or voting-system weaknesses.
- Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional, civic, or open-source setting.
Because Govnr may one day support real communities, institutions, and democratic processes, contributors should hold themselves to a high standard of care.
Project participants should:
- Respect that voting systems, identity systems, audit logs, and AI-assisted civic tools can affect real people.
- Avoid treating safety, moderation, accessibility, privacy, or security as secondary concerns.
- Be transparent about uncertainty, trade-offs, and limitations.
- Avoid presenting AI-generated content, summaries, or research as authoritative without appropriate context and verification.
- Avoid making unsupported legal, electoral, security, or civic claims on behalf of the project.
- Disclose conflicts of interest when contributing to decisions where they may be relevant.
This Code of Conduct applies within all Govnr project spaces, including repositories, issues, pull requests, discussions, chats, documentation, events, and any other spaces used for project work.
It also applies when an individual is officially representing the project in public spaces. Examples include using an official project email address, posting through official social media accounts, presenting at an event as a Govnr representative, or acting as an appointed maintainer or moderator.
Project maintainers are responsible for clarifying and enforcing standards of acceptable behaviour. They may take appropriate and fair corrective action in response to behaviour they deem inappropriate, threatening, offensive, harmful, or contrary to the goals of this Code of Conduct.
Maintainers have the right and responsibility to remove, edit, or reject comments, commits, code, documentation, issues, pull requests, and other contributions that are not aligned with this Code of Conduct. They may also temporarily or permanently restrict participation by contributors whose behaviour is harmful or disruptive.
Maintainers should apply this Code of Conduct consistently and should explain moderation decisions where doing so is safe, proportionate, and respectful of confidentiality.
Instances of abusive, harassing, or otherwise unacceptable behaviour may be reported privately to:
admin@govnr.org
Reports should include as much relevant context as is reasonable, such as links, screenshots, dates, usernames, and a description of what happened.
All reports will be reviewed and investigated promptly and fairly. The maintainers will respect the privacy and security of the reporter and of anyone else involved. Reports will be kept confidential to the extent possible while still allowing appropriate review and response.
Anyone who receives a report must handle it with care and must not retaliate against the reporter or others involved.
Maintainers will follow these guidelines when determining consequences for behaviour that violates this Code of Conduct.
Community Impact: Use of inappropriate language or other behaviour deemed unprofessional, unwelcome, or inconsistent with the project's standards.
Consequence: A private, written warning from maintainers, providing clarity around the nature of the violation and an explanation of why the behaviour was inappropriate. A public apology may be requested where appropriate.
Community Impact: A violation through a single incident or series of actions.
Consequence: A warning with consequences for continued behaviour. The person may be asked to avoid interaction with the people involved, including unsolicited interaction with those enforcing the Code of Conduct, for a specified period of time. Continued violation may lead to a temporary or permanent ban.
Community Impact: A serious violation of community standards, including sustained inappropriate behaviour.
Consequence: A temporary ban from project spaces or forms of interaction for a specified period of time. During this period, the person may be prohibited from public or private interaction with the people involved and with maintainers enforcing the Code of Conduct. Violating these terms may lead to a permanent ban.
Community Impact: A pattern of violating community standards, harassment of an individual, aggression toward or disparagement of classes of people, threats, severe abuse, or conduct that creates substantial risk to people or project integrity.
Consequence: A permanent ban from project spaces and official project interaction.
This Code of Conduct is adapted from the Contributor Covenant, version 2.1, available at:
https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/2/1/code_of_conduct/