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DOC: reasoning for communications guidelines #27249

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66 changes: 54 additions & 12 deletions doc/devel/communication_guide.rst
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.. _communications-guidelines:

========================
Communication guidelines
========================
==========================
Community management guide
==========================

These guidelines are applicable when acting as a representative of Matplotlib,
These guidelines are applicable when **acting as a representative** of Matplotlib,
for example at sprints or when giving official talks or tutorials, and in any
community venue managed by Matplotlib.

Our approach to community engagement is foremost guided by our :ref:`mission-statement`:

* We demonstrate that we care about visualization as a practice
* We deepen our practice and the community’s capacity to support users,
facilitate exploration, produce high quality visualizations, and be
understandable and extensible
* We showcase advanced use of the library without adding maintenance burden to
the documentation and recognize contributions that happen outside of the github
workflow.
* We use communications platforms to maintain relationships with contributors
who may no longer be active on GitHub, build relationships with potential
contributors, and connect with other projects and communities who use
Matplotlib.
* In prioritizing understandability and extensiblity, we recognize that people
using Matplotlib, in whatever capacity, are part of our community. Doing so
empowers our community members to build community with each other, for example
by creating educational resources, building third party tools, and building
informal mentoring networks.

.. _communication-channels:

Official communication channels
===============================
The Scientific Python community uses various communications platforms to stay
updated on new features and projects, to contribute by telling us what is on
their mind and suggest issues and bugs, and to showcase their use cases and the
tools they have built.

The following venues are managed by Matplotlib maintainers and contributors:

* library and docs: https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -148,12 +171,32 @@ Visual media in communications should be made as accessible as possible:
* Do not make bright, strobing images.
* More guidelines at https://webaim.org/techniques/images/.

.. _social-media-brand:

Social media
============

Please follow these guidelines to maintain a consistent brand identity across
platforms.
Matplotlib aims for a single voice across all social media platforms to build and
maintain a consistent brand identity for Matplotlib as an organization. This
depersonalization is the norm on social media platforms because it enables
constructive and productive conversations; People generally feel more comfortable
giving negative and constructive feedback to a brand than to specific contributors.

The current Matplotlib voice and persona aims to be kind, patient, supportive and
educational. This is so that it can de-escalate tensions and facilitate
constructive conversations; being perceived as negative or
argumentative can escalate very fast into long-lasting brand damage, being
perceived as personal leads to aggression and accusations faster than an
impersonal account, and being perceived as friendly and approachable leads to
higher engagement. Instead of speaking with a directive authority, which can be
intimidating and lead to negative engagement, it speaks as a peer or educator to
empower participation. The current voice encourages more input from folks we
engage with, and also makes it possible for folks who are not in the core team
to participate in managing the account.

While the :ref:`brand identity <social-media-brand>` is casual, the showcased
content is high quality, peer-led resource building. Please follow these
guidelines to maintain a consistent brand identity across platforms.

Persona
-------
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -213,11 +256,10 @@ Retired campaigns
Changing the guidelines
=======================

As the person tasked with implementing communications, the `community-manager`_
should be alerted to proposed changes to the communications guidelines. Similarly,
specific platform guidelines (e.g. twitter, instagram) should be reviewed by the
person responsible for that platform, when different from the community manager.
If there is no consensus, decisions about communications guidelines revert to
the community manager.
As the person tasked with implementing these guidelines, the `community-manager`_
should be alerted to proposed changes. Similarly, specific platform guidelines
(e.g. twitter, instagram) should be reviewed by the person responsible for that
platform, when different from the community manager. If there is no consensus,
decisions about guidelines revert to the community manager.

.. _community-manager: https://matplotlib.org/governance/people.html#deputy-project-leads
2 changes: 2 additions & 0 deletions doc/users/project/mission.rst
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.. _mission-statement:

Mission Statement
=================

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