docs(site-policy): improve and restructure GitHub Community Guidelines

Author: TheeNativeHub

content/site-policy/github-terms/github-community-guidelines.md

@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 ---
 title: GitHub Community Guidelines
+description: Best practices and expectations for participating in the GitHub community — for contributors, maintainers, and organizations.
 redirect_from:
   - /community-guidelines
   - /articles/github-community-guidelines
@@ -9,66 +10,70 @@ versions:
   fpt: '*'
 category:
   - Review product and program terms
+last_updated: 2026-08-18
 ---
 
-Millions of developers across the world host millions of projects—both open and closed source—on GitHub. We're fortunate to be able to play a part in enabling collaboration across the developer community every day, which is a responsibility we don’t take lightly. Together, we all have the exciting opportunity to make this a community we can be proud of.
-
-Our diverse user base brings different perspectives, ideas, and experiences, and ranges from people who created their first "Hello World" project last week to the most well-known software developers in the world. We are committed to making GitHub an environment that welcomes all the different voices and perspectives our community has to offer, while maintaining a safe place for developers to do their best work.
-
-By outlining what we think a [safe, welcoming, and productive community](https://opensource.guide/building-community/) looks like at GitHub, we hope to help you understand how best to interact and collaborate on our platform in line with our [Terms of Service](/site-policy/github-terms/github-terms-of-service) and [Acceptable Use Policies](/site-policy/acceptable-use-policies/github-acceptable-use-policies).
-
-We encourage our community members to communicate expectations clearly, [moderate](#what-if-something-or-someone-offends-you) their projects where possible, and [report](https://github.com/contact/report-abuse) any content that may violate our [policies](/site-policy/github-terms/github-terms-of-service). GitHub Staff will investigate any reports of abuse, and may moderate public content on our site that we determine to be in violation of our Terms of Service.
-
-## Maintaining a strong community
-
-The primary purpose of the GitHub community is to collaborate on software projects. We are committed to maintaining a community where users are free to express themselves and challenge one another's ideas, both technical and otherwise. At the same time, it's important that users remain respectful and allow space for others to contribute openly. In order to foster both a safe and productive environment, we encourage our community members to look to these guidelines to inform how they interact on our platform. Below, you’ll find some suggestions for how to have successful interactions as a valued member of the GitHub community.
-
-* **Be welcoming and open-minded** - New users join our community each day. Some are well-established developers, while others are just beginning. Be open to other ideas and experience levels. Make room for opinions other than your own and be welcoming to new collaborators and those just getting started.
-
-* **Be respectful** - Working in a collaborative environment means disagreements may happen. But remember to criticize ideas, not people. Share thoughtful, constructive criticism and be courteous to those you interact with. If you’re unable to engage respectfully, consider taking a step back or using some of our moderation tools to deescalate a tense situation.
-
-* **Be empathetic** - GitHub is a global community with people from a wide variety of backgrounds and perspectives, many of which may not be your own. Try to put yourself in others’ shoes and understand their feelings before you address them. Do your best to help make GitHub a community where others feel safe to make contributions, participate in discussions, and share different ideas.
-
-## What if something or someone offends you?
-
-While some disagreements can be resolved with direct, respectful communication between community members, we understand that is not always the case. We encourage our community to contact GitHub Support through the [GitHub Support portal](https://support.github.com/) when they believe content or activity they’ve encountered violates our policies. However, if you run into something or someone on the site that you find objectionable, here are some ways GitHub enables you to take action:
-
-* **Communicate expectations** - Maintainers can set community-specific guidelines to help users understand how to interact with their projects, for example, in a repository’s README, [CONTRIBUTING file](/communities/setting-up-your-project-for-healthy-contributions/setting-guidelines-for-repository-contributors), or [dedicated code of conduct](/communities/setting-up-your-project-for-healthy-contributions/adding-a-code-of-conduct-to-your-project). You can find additional information on building communities on the [Communities](/communities) page.
-
-* **Moderate Comments** - Users with [write-access privileges](/organizations/managing-user-access-to-your-organizations-repositories/managing-repository-roles/repository-roles-for-an-organization) for a repository can [edit, delete, or hide anyone's comments](/communities/moderating-comments-and-conversations/managing-disruptive-comments) on commits, pull requests, and issues. Anyone with read access to a repository can view a comment's edit history. Comment authors and people with write access to a repository can also delete sensitive information from a [comment's edit history](/communities/moderating-comments-and-conversations/tracking-changes-in-a-comment). Moderating your projects can feel like a big task if there is a lot of activity, but you can [add collaborators](/repositories/managing-your-repositorys-settings-and-features/repository-access-and-collaboration/permission-levels-for-a-personal-account-repository#collaborator-access-for-a-repository-owned-by-a-personal-account) to assist you in managing your community.
-
-* **Lock Conversations**  - If a discussion in an issue, pull request, or commit gets out of hand, off topic, or violates your project’s code of conduct or GitHub’s policies, owners, collaborators, and anyone else with write access can put a temporary or permanent lock on the conversation. For more information, see [AUTOTITLE](/communities/moderating-comments-and-conversations/locking-conversations).
-
-* **Block Users**  - If you encounter a specific user who you would rather not engage with, you can [block the user from your personal account](/communities/maintaining-your-safety-on-github/blocking-a-user-from-your-personal-account) or [from your organization](/communities/maintaining-your-safety-on-github/blocking-a-user-from-your-organization).
-
-* **Limit Interactions** - If your public project is getting unwanted attention, being trolled, spammed, or otherwise, you have the option of setting [temporary interaction limits](/communities/moderating-comments-and-conversations/limiting-interactions-in-your-repository) to keep certain users from interacting with your repository. You can even set [code review limits](https://github.blog/2021-11-01-github-keeps-getting-better-for-open-source-maintainers/#preventing-drive-by-pull-request-approvals-and-requested-changes) to ensure quality contributions on your projects.
-
-While we are passionate about empowering maintainers to moderate their own projects, please contact {% data variables.contact.contact_support %} if you need additional support in dealing with a situation.
-
-## What happens if someone violates GitHub's policies?
-
-We rely on reports from the community, as well as proactive detection, to help ensure that GitHub is a safe, welcoming, and productive platform for software developers. There are a variety of factors we consider when we’re made aware of behavior or content not in line with GitHub’s policies. However, our policy enforcement and content moderation approach prioritizes our vision to be the home for all developers. This means:
-
-* We optimize for code collaboration. We recognize that code can have multiple uses and we distinguish between how the code is being used on the platform and other possible uses. We also think about how our enforcement actions can affect a potentially complicated web of interdependencies across the platform and aim to restrict as little legitimate content as possible.
-
-* We take a human-centered approach to content moderation and we tailor our responses to meet the needs of a specific situation. Our global team investigates the reports we receive on a case-by-case basis—considering context and the surrounding facts—before taking action. This could include taking into account potentially offensive content being posted in a way that lacks context or makes it easy for other users to unwittingly view or interact with while using GitHub. In those instances, we may favor moderation in order to safeguard our community.
-
-* Our decisions are rooted in our core belief that serving an interconnected community and empowering human progress through developer collaboration requires a commitment to diversity, inclusion, and belonging.
-
-Where we have decided that moderation action is warranted, these are some of the ways we may respond:
-
-* Removing the offending content
-* Blocking or disabling the offending content
-* Downgrading the visibility of the offending content
-* Hiding a user account or organization from public view
-* Suspending a user account or organization
-
-## Appeal and Reinstatement
-
-If your content or account has been disabled or restricted and you seek reinstatement or wish to appeal, please see our [Appeal and Reinstatement page](/site-policy/acceptable-use-policies/github-appeal-and-reinstatement) for information about the process and use our [Appeal and Reinstatement form](https://support.github.com/contact/reinstatement) to submit a request.
-
-## Legal Notices
-
-We dedicate these Community Guidelines to the public domain for anyone to use, reuse, adapt, or whatever, under the terms of [CC0-1.0](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/).
-
-These are only guidelines; they do not modify our [Terms of Service](/site-policy/github-terms/github-terms-of-service) and are not intended to be a complete list. Under those terms, GitHub retains full discretion to remove any content or terminate any accounts for activity that violates our [Acceptable Use Policies](/site-policy/acceptable-use-policies/github-acceptable-use-policies). These guidelines describe when we will exercise that discretion.
+Millions of developers around the world host projects on GitHub. These guidelines describe what a safe, welcoming, and productive GitHub community looks like and how we expect people to interact on the platform.
+
+Who this applies to
+- Contributors, maintainers, and organizations using GitHub.
+- Public and private repositories hosted on GitHub.com.
+- Community spaces like issues, pull requests, discussions, and profile pages.
+
+Core principles
+- Be welcoming and open-minded — welcome newcomers and value diverse perspectives.
+- Be respectful — critique ideas, not people; avoid abusive or demeaning language.
+- Be empathetic — recognize that people come from different backgrounds and experiences.
+- Be constructive — give actionable feedback and write clearly and kindly.
+
+Concrete examples (do / don't)
+- Do: Ask clarifying questions in a code review and provide suggested fixes or references.
+- Don't: Post personal attacks, insults, or slurs directed at a person or group.
+- Do: Create a CONTRIBUTING or CODE_OF_CONDUCT file to set expectations for your repo and link to it from the README.
+- Don't: Share private information (doxxing) or threats of violence.
+- Do: Use issue templates to request additional information from reporters and to triage bug reports and security concerns.
+- Don't: Repeatedly harass or target a user across multiple issues, PRs, or accounts.
+- Do: Use respectful, technical language when explaining why a change is needed; include examples and steps to reproduce when reporting bugs.
+- Don't: Use sustained trolling behavior, coordinated harassment, or attempts to silence legitimate contributors.
+
+More real-world scenarios
+- Hate speech & slurs: Any direct use of slurs, epithets, or language intended to degrade a protected class is not acceptable. Remove or report content that includes these terms used to harass.
+- Doxxing: Posting private or intimate information about someone (home address, phone numbers, non-public social profiles, government ID details) to intimidate or shame is strictly prohibited.
+- Threats & violence: Threats of physical harm, sexual violence, or incitement to violence are disallowed and should be reported immediately.
+- Impersonation & fraud: Creating accounts that impersonate another user, organization, or project to mislead or defraud is not acceptable.
+- Spam & malicious links: Repeated, irrelevant, or promotional posts and posts that include malware or phishing links should be removed and reported.
+- Targeted harassment campaigns: Coordinated attempts to flood or harass an individual across multiple repos or accounts are prohibited.
+- Abuse of project tools: Using issues, PRs, or comments to continually harass maintainers (for example, by reopening closed discussions, creating duplicate abusive issues) is unacceptable.
+
+Maintainers: tools and best practices
+- Communicate expectations — add CONTRIBUTING and CODE_OF_CONDUCT files and link to them from your README.
+- Moderate comments — users with write access can edit, hide, or remove comments that violate repository rules.
+- Lock conversations — when threads get off-topic, hostile, or repetitive, lock them to stop further comments.
+- Block users — block specific users from interacting with your personal account if needed.
+- Limit interactions — use temporary interaction limits for repos experiencing spam, harassment, or targeted abuse.
+- Use templates — issue and PR templates help gather structured reports and make moderation faster.
+- Create moderation workflows — document how maintainers triage reports, escalate sensitive cases, and communicate actions back to the community.
+
+How to report content or behavior
+- Use the built-in reporting tools on the offending content (issue, comment, or profile).
+- If you need additional support, contact GitHub Support: {% raw %}{% data variables.contact.contact_support %}{% endraw %} (or replace with https://support.github.com/contact if you prefer an explicit URL).
+- When reporting, include helpful context: direct links to the content, a brief description of why it violates guidelines, and any relevant timestamps or thread links.
+- For legal emergencies or imminent threats to safety, contact local law enforcement in addition to reporting on GitHub.
+
+Enforcement and transparency
+- We rely on community reports and automated detection; each report is reviewed case-by-case by our moderation team.
+- Possible outcomes include removing offending content, limiting visibility, hiding user accounts or organizations from public view, or suspending accounts.
+- We apply a human-centered, proportional approach when responding to reports and aim to provide options for remediation when appropriate.
+- Users may not always receive public details about moderation decisions due to privacy and safety considerations, but we strive for consistent, fair enforcement.
+
+Appeals and reinstatement
+If your content or account is disabled or restricted and you wish to appeal, see the Appeal and Reinstatement page: /site-policy/acceptable-use-policies/github-appeal-and-reinstatement (please verify that the page slug and URL are correct in the site build).
+
+Legal notices and license
+- These Community Guidelines are intended as guidance and do not replace GitHub's Terms of Service.
+- The text of these guidelines is dedicated to the public domain under [CC0-1.0](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/).
+
+Notes for maintainers of this page
+- Verify internal variables and shortlinks render correctly in the site build (for example, {% raw %}{% data variables.contact.contact_support %}{% endraw %}).
+- Consider adding localized translations where appropriate.
+- If you prefer an explicit support URL instead of the site variable, replace the contact variable with the canonical support link.