NMDC Code of Conduct
and Contributor Covenant
Our Pledge
In the interest of fostering an open and welcoming environment, we pledge to make participation in the NMDC Program and community a harassment-free experience for everyone.
Our Standards
We commit to the following principles:
- Cultivate a Harassment-Free Environment: Ensure our community is free from harassment of all kinds, including inappropriate verbal and written language and imagery.
- Promote Constructive Engagement: Engage in constructive and transparent dialogue, allowing all perspectives to be shared, supporting new ideas, and providing solutions to current challenges.
- Demonstrate Professionalism and Positivity: Celebrate all contributions, understand the learning opportunities in failure, and foster a culture of trust through accountability and transparent communication.
- Encourage Collaboration and Shared Ownership: Advance collaboration with shared ownership across all microbiome research communities, respecting the contributions of every member.
- Abide by Community Guidelines: All community interactions should align with NMDC’s Data Use Policy and the principles outlined in this document. Any contributions to the NMDC must be done by submitters with the authority to do so, and with appropriate citations included.
Our Responsibilities
NMDC Leads are responsible for clarifying the standards of acceptable behavior and are expected to take appropriate and fair corrective action in response to any instances of unacceptable behavior.
NMDC Leads have the right and responsibility to remove, edit, or reject comments, commits, code, wiki edits, issues, and other contributions that are not aligned to this Code of Conduct, or to ban temporarily or permanently any contributor for other behaviors that they deem inappropriate, threatening, offensive, or harmful.
Scope
This Code of Conduct applies within all community spaces, including online forums, mailing lists, collaborative platforms, and events, as well as in public spaces where individuals are representing the community.
Enforcement
Instances of abusive, harassing, or otherwise unacceptable behavior may be reported by contacting the program team. All complaints will be reviewed and investigated and will result in a response that is deemed necessary and appropriate to the circumstances. The program team is obligated to maintain confidentiality with regard to the reporter of an incident. Further details of specific enforcement policies may be posted separately.
NMDC Leads who do not follow or enforce the Code of Conduct in good faith may face temporary or permanent repercussions as determined by other members of the Program’s leadership.
Attribution
This Code of Conduct has been derived from the excellent code of conduct of the ATOM project which in turn is adapted from the Contributor Covenant, version 1.4, available at https://contributor-covenant.org/version/1/4. It has been informed by earlier versions of the NMDC code of conduct.
