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Team Charter |
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Introduction
There are multiple ways the team can communicate with each other, and this guide will lay down some basic ground rules. All members are welcome and are encouraged to participate in the Forums, IRC, and the Mailing Lists. At all times remember the Ubuntu Code of Conduct!
Ubuntu Code of Conduct (CoC)
This Code of Conduct covers your behavior as a member of the Ubuntu Community, in any forum, mailing list, wiki, web site, IRC channel, install-fest, public meeting or private correspondence. The Ubuntu Community Council will arbitrate in any dispute over the conduct of a member of the community.
- 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 colleagues, and we expect you to take those consequences into account when making decisions. For example, when we are in a feature freeze, please don't upload dramatically new versions of critical system software, as other people will be testing the frozen system and not be expecting big changes.
- Be respectful. The Ubuntu community and its members treat one another with respect. Everyone can make a valuable contribution to Ubuntu. We may not always agree, but disagreement is no excuse for poor behaviour and poor manners. We might all experience some frustration now and then, but we cannot allow that frustration to turn into a personal attack. It's important to remember that a community where people feel uncomfortable or threatened is not a productive one. We expect members of the Ubuntu community to be respectful when dealing with other contributors as well as with people outside the Ubuntu project, and with users of Ubuntu
- Be collaborative. Ubuntu and Free Software are about collaboration and working together. Collaboration reduces redundancy of work done in the Free Software world, and improves the quality of the software produced. You should aim to collaborate with other Ubuntu maintainers, as well as with the upstream community that is interested in the work you do. Your work should be done transparently and patches from Ubuntu should be given back to the community when they are made, not just when the distribution releases. If you wish to work on new code for existing upstream projects, at least keep those projects informed of your ideas and progress. It may not be possible to get consensus from upstream or even from your colleagues about the correct implementation of an idea, so don't feel obliged to have that agreement before you begin, but at least keep the outside world informed of your work, and publish your work in a way that allows outsiders to test, discuss and contribute to your efforts.
- When you disagree, consult others. Disagreements, both political and technical, happen all the time and the Ubuntu community is no exception. The important goal is not to avoid disagreements or differing views but to resolve them constructively. You should turn to the community and to the community process to seek advice and to resolve disagreements. We have the Technical Board and the Community Council, both of which will help to decide the right course for Ubuntu. There are also several Project Teams and Team Leaders, who may be able to help you figure out which direction will be most acceptable. If you really want to go a different way, then we encourage you to make a derivative distribution or alternative set of packages available using the Ubuntu Package Management framework, so that the community can try out your changes and ideas for itself and contribute to the discussion.
- When you are unsure, ask for help. Nobody knows everything, and nobody is expected to be perfect in the Ubuntu community (except of course the SABDFL). Asking questions avoids many problems down the road, and so questions are encouraged. Those who are asked should be responsive and helpful. However, when asking a question, care must be taken to do so in an appropriate forum. Off-topic questions, such as requests for help on a development mailing list, detract from productive discussion.
- Step down considerately. Developers on every project come and go and Ubuntu is no different. When you leave or disengage from the project, in whole or in part, we ask that you do so in a way that minimises disruption to the project. This means you should tell people you are leaving and take the proper steps to ensure that others can pick up where you leave off.
Means of communication
We as a team have no ill will towards anyone. We do not flame, put down or in any other way intend to insult each other or anyone else. Ours is a group of friends and colleagues, who wish to have fun and work together in the spirit of the CoC in order to accomplish a great many things.
Forums
The Forum is located at http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=311 it is used for discussion and presentation of ideas involving the group and hashing out decisions made by the group. It has important threads at all times and should probably be checked daily for new posts, and responses, as we make a great many decisions through discussion in the forum that require your input. We want everyone to participate with their ideas and opinions in the decisions made by the group. Your opinions are extremely important to all, and we welcome them in the forum.
Wiki
The Wiki is located at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SouthCarolinaTeam It is the place that the finalized ideas from the forum and IRC end up. It is the "Official" guide to our team. It is the place that the Ubuntu community itself learns everything about Team South Carolina and what is going on in the team. It is an information site and used for knowledge management/sharing purposes.
Website
The Website is located at http://www.ubuntusc.com It is our portal to everything Ubuntu Team South Carolina. It has announcements, links to the blogs, a java IRC client so you can chat with the team during meetings without having to install or set up your own client, and it gives us the flexibility to add many more features like the possibility of hosted member sites etc. in the future. It is under planning and construction.
Blog
The Web Log or Blog is located at http://ubuntusc.com/ubuntu-blog/ it will be used by team members exclusively to blog about topics specific to Ubuntu like tutorials, reviews, and possibly things the team is doing in the state. We need bloggers and we need ideas!
IRC
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is an old form of electronic communication dating back to 1988 but is still quite popular. Their are many clients (Software Programs) that can be used to communicate on IRC, and there are many tutorials on how it all works and how to set up your favorite client. We use IRC for group meetings because we can all participate simultaneously, in real time. We use chat.freenode.net as the server and the group channel is #ubuntu-us-sc. There is probably one or two of us there all the time, but may just be idle. We have an archive of our past chats located at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SouthCarolinaTeam/Meetings For those who do not wish to install anything, or are a little "iffy" about IRC, you can go to our homepage where we have a java client for you to use, although it is not as feature rich as if you had your own client installed. The Java client can be found at http://www.ubuntusc.com/Chat/
Instant Messaging
Instant Messaging is now probably the most popular form of communication via the Internet. There are many different clients available to provide this such as AOL instant messenger, Yahoo instant messenger, MSN instant messenger, and the list goes on. This form of communication has it pluses and minuses. On the plus side it allows you to type messages to someone in real time like IRC, and it allows you to share files with the person you are talking to. It allows you to see when one of your friends comes on line, and that also can be a minus! Also on the minus side are some privacy concerns dealing with when you go online, how much you are online and that sort of thing, by the providers of the clients. As far as we feel about instant messaging I will quote xarquid in a post he made to the Forum:
"I think we ALL USE INSTANT MESSAGING! We should all exchange IM names (via PMs/e-mail....). Then we can start group chat sessions every now and then."
"But not all the time. This does not need to get overwhelming. This is volunteering...not stalking, and it should not consume our lives We all have friends, family, significant others, wives, husbands, boyfriends, girlfriends, etc..."
"If we have a few people online on AIM/GTalk/or -wherever- DO NOT (and I repeat -DO NOT-) constantly request a group chat. That is annoying. That is the only draw back I see."
"The purpose of IRC I see, and an advantage of it, is great so people can pop in and pop out, go idle, go away, or close their SSH window and leave the shell running. Users don't have to be bothered (it's like sending a text message instead of making that long phone call so you can avoid talking to someone for 5 minutes!). Know what I mean? I think we all do..."
I think that says it all. Instant messaging is wonderful to say "hi" to a friend, and it is a powerful tool for the group to use in collaboration with one another. For instance: If one of us is working on a new blog post, and have a question about something involving the blog that isn't working, for example, if you use your IM client and see that one of the blog team members is at his or her computer, you can very rapidly get in touch with that team member and have the question answered immediately, rather than waiting for a response via e-mail or other form of communication. It too is fine to sit down and have a personal chat with another team member at anytime, however, do understand if the other person says that he or she is busy, and just tell them to have a good day, and that you'll catch them later!
Personal E-Mail
We, at the time of writing, do not have a compiled list of email addresses of all team members, however, if you need a specific team members' email address, you can to to our Launchpad page, choose to "Show all members" and then you will be able to select the specific member and get their address. Personal email is perfect for contacting a specific member in regards to a specific question related to the group. Always keep your conversation via e-mail on topic to the group. Do not use it for sending off topic purposes such as sending pictures, jokes or otherwise unless you have explicit permission from the recipient.
Mailing Lists
Our group has a mail list available at ubuntu-us-sc@lists.ubuntu.com To be able to post or receive messages from the list you need to visit https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-us-sc and subscribe. Our mail list is used for announcements to the entire group. The mail list is not used for discussion of topics, that is left in the forum.
Sub-Team Mail Lists
We have and use mail lists specific to sub-teams such as the wiki team, web team, and so on. These lists ARE used for discussion and announcements specific to those teams, as to not clutter the forum with pages of discussion related to them, although that could change in the future if the need arises. If you join one of the sub teams you will be notified of the list and how to join it.