The Cohere Community and Learning Citizenship*

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The primary purpose of the Cohere community is to support learning for ourselves. We want people to learn together, to understand how we learn together and to value the learning we all do in every moment of our lives. The world is too big to know by ourselves. Although we maintain the site, this is a community we build together, and we need your help to make it the best it can be.

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• Be welcoming and open-minded - Other learners may not have the same experience level or background as you in a particular subject, but that doesn't mean they don't have good ideas to contribute. We encourage you to be welcoming to new learners and those just getting started.

• Respect each other - Nothing sabotages healthy conversation like rudeness. Be civil and professional, and don’t post anything that a reasonable person would consider offensive, abusive, or hate speech. Don’t harass or grief anyone. Treat each other with dignity and consideration in all interactions. You may wish to respond to something by disagreeing with it and debate is helpful for learning. But remember to critique ideas, not people. Avoid name-calling, ad hominem attacks, responding to a post’s tone instead of its actual content, and knee-jerk contradiction. Instead, provide reasoned counter-arguments that improve the conversation. Be 'critical friends'.

• Communicate with empathy - Disagreements or differences of opinion are a fact of life. Being part of a community means interacting with people from a variety of backgrounds and perspectives, many of which may not be your own. If you disagree with someone, try to understand and share their feelings before you address them. This will promote a respectful and friendly atmosphere where people feel comfortable asking questions, participating in discussions, and making contributions.

• Don't be deliberately misleading or vague - Be clear and stay on topic while being brave in exploring. People use Cohere to support learning. Sharing how you understand two different activities might be related are helpful. Seeing connections or patterns where there is no evidence for them is called apophenia. Don't become unkind through a defensive position. Communicating with strangers on the Internet can be awkward. It's hard to convey or read tone, and sarcasm is frequently misunderstood. Try to use clear language, and think about how it will be received by the other person.

• Be learning warriors - This is a learning platform and 'we learn through our mistakes'. Also, 'the best way to learn is to teach'. Also, 'Give a person a fish, and you feed them for a day. Teach a person to fish, and you feed them for a lifetime'. Cohere is here to support learning how to learn so be open to your understanding being challenged and seek robust evidence for your perspective if it is challenged.

• In summary - people like to say 'be kind' a lot these days. Being kind doesn't mean just being nice to someone who you are standing in front of, it is a way of being. The words we use start with the thoughts we have. We all have "an equivalent centre of self, whence the lights and shadows must always fall with a certain difference" (George Elliot, Middlemarch) and we are all travelling the journey of life in ways no one else can ever possibly fully comprehend. This uniqueness is our best gift to the learning of others and the best resource for our own learning. So give others the benefit of the doubt and the gift of your kindness. Or put another way, if you don't have anything nice to say or write, don't say or write anything.

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* Learning citizenship is a concept described by Etienne Wenger, the author of the original and seminal text, Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity (see https://wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/).

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What if something or someone offends you?

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We rely on the community to let us know when an issue needs to be addressed. We do not actively monitor the site for offensive content. If you run into something or someone on the site that you find objectionable, here are some tools Cohere provides to help you take action immediately:

• Communicate expectations - If you create or participate in a community of inquiry, encourage members to follow these guidelines and consider creating community-specific guidelines

• Report abuse if you need more help dealing with a situation by emailing support@cohere.education.

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What is not allowed?

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We are committed to maintaining a community where users are free to express themselves and challenge one another's ideas. Such discussions, however, are unlikely to foster fruitful dialog when ideas are silenced because community members are being shouted down or are afraid to speak up. That means you should be respectful and civil at all times, and refrain from attacking others on the basis of who they are. We do not tolerate behavior that crosses the line into the following:

• Threats of violence

  You may not threaten violence towards others or use the site to organize, promote, or incite acts of real-world violence or terrorism. Think carefully about the words you use, the images you post, the resources you provide links to and how they may be interpreted by others. Even if you mean something as a joke, it might not be received that way. If you think that someone else might interpret the content you post as a threat, or as promoting violence or terrorism, stop. Don't post it on Cohere. In extraordinary cases, we may report threats of violence to law enforcement if we think there may be a genuine risk of physical harm or a threat to public safety.

• Hate speech and discrimination

  While it is not forbidden to broach topics such as age, body size, disability, ethnicity, gender identity and expression, level of experience, nationality, personal appearance, race, religion, or sexual identity and orientation, we do not tolerate speech that attacks a person or group of people on the basis of who they are. Just realize that when approached in an aggressive or insulting manner, these (and other) sensitive topics can make others feel unwelcome, or perhaps even unsafe. While there's always the potential for misunderstandings, we expect our community members to remain respectful and civil when discussing sensitive topics.

• Bullying and harassment

  We do not tolerate bullying or harassment. This means any habitual badgering or intimidation targeted at a specific person or group of people. In general, if your actions are unwanted and you continue to engage in them, there's a good chance you are headed into bullying or harassment territory.

• Disrupting the experience of other users

  Being part of a community includes recognizing how your behavior affects others and engaging in meaningful and productive interactions with people and the platform they rely on. Behaviors such as repeatedly posting deliberately misleading comments, opening empty or meaningless issues or pull requests, or using any other platform feature in a way that continually disrupts the experience of other users are not allowed. While we encourage maintainers to moderate their own projects on an individual basis, GitHub staff may take further restrictive action against accounts that are engaging in these types of behaviors.

• Impersonation

  You may not impersonate another person by copying their avatar, posting content under their email address, using a similar username or otherwise posing as someone else. Impersonation is a form of harassment.

• Doxxing and invasion of privacy

  Don't post other people's personal information, such as personal, private email addresses, phone numbers, physical addresses, credit card numbers, Social Security/National Identity numbers, or passwords. Depending on the context, such as in the case of intimidation or harassment, we may consider other information, such as photos or videos that were taken or distributed without the subject's consent, to be an invasion of privacy, especially when such material presents a safety risk to the subject.

• Sexually obscene content

  Don’t post content that is pornographic. This does not mean that all nudity, or all code and content related to sexuality, is prohibited. We recognize that sexuality is a part of life and non-pornographic sexual content may be a part of your project, or may be presented for educational or artistic purposes. Remember that young learners may be using this platform so do rate your content where necessary. We do not allow obscene sexual content or content that may involve the exploitation or sexualization of minors.

• Gratuitously violent content

  Don’t post violent images, text, or other content without reasonable context or warnings. While it's often okay to include violent content in video games, news reports, and descriptions of historical events, we do not allow violent content that is posted indiscriminately, or that is posted in a way that makes it difficult for other users to avoid (such as a profile avatar or an issue comment). A clear warning or disclaimer in other contexts helps users make an educated decision as to whether or not they want to engage with such content.

• Misinformation and disinformation

  You may not post content that presents a distorted view of reality, whether it is inaccurate or false (misinformation) or is intentionally deceptive (disinformation) where such content is likely to result in harm to the public or to interfere with fair and equal opportunities for all to participate in public life. For example, we do not allow content that may put the well-being of groups of people at risk or limit their ability to take part in a free and open society. We encourage active participation in the expression of ideas, perspectives, and experiences and may not be in a position to dispute personal accounts or observations. We consider context to be important in how information is received and understood; therefore, it may be appropriate to clarify your intentions via disclaimers or other means, as well as the source(s) of your information.

• Active malware or exploits

  Being part of a community includes not taking advantage of other members of the community. We do not allow anyone to use our platform in direct support of unlawful attacks that cause technical harms, such as using GitHub as a means to deliver malicious executables or as attack infrastructure, for example by organizing denial of service attacks or managing command and control servers. Technical harms means overconsumption of resources, physical damage, downtime, denial of service, or data loss, with no implicit or explicit dual-use purpose prior to the abuse occurring.

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What happens if someone breaks the rules?

 

There are a variety of actions that we may take when a user reports inappropriate behavior or content. It usually depends on the exact circumstances of a particular case. We recognize that sometimes people may say or do inappropriate things for any number of reasons. Perhaps they did not realize how their words would be perceived. Or maybe they just let their emotions get the best of them. Of course, sometimes, there are folks who just want to spam or cause trouble.

Each case requires a different approach, and we try to tailor our response to meet the needs of the situation that has been reported. We'll review each abuse report on a case-by-case basis. In each case, we will have a diverse team investigate the content and surrounding facts and respond as appropriate, using these guidelines to guide our decision.

Actions we may take in response to an abuse report include but are not limited to:

• Content Removal

• Content Blocking

• Account Suspension

• Account Termination

 

Appeal and Reinstatement

 

In some cases there may be a basis to reverse an action, for example, based on additional information a user provided, or where a user has addressed the violation and agreed to abide by our Acceptable Use Policies moving forward. If you wish to appeal an enforcement action, please contact support.

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