BAOSP is built by and for blind and disabled people. The screen reader, the TTS engine, and every line of accessibility code in this project exists because blind people need a phone OS that works for them.
This community centers blind, Deafblind, low-vision, and otherwise disabled contributors. Sighted and non-disabled contributors are welcome and valued — but you are guests in a space that is designed around disabled people's needs, not the other way around.
Do not offer unsolicited help. Do not assume someone needs assistance because they are blind or disabled. If someone asks for help, give it. Otherwise, let them lead.
Write the way you speak. Short sentences. Concrete words. Do not hide behind jargon when a plain word works just as well. This is not only polite — it makes the project more accessible to more people.
Do not use disability as a metaphor for something bad or broken. Do not describe things as "blind" when you mean uninformed, "deaf" when you mean unresponsive, or "lame" when you mean bad. These words are not available to you as insults or figures of speech in this community.
If your code, documentation, or design removes or degrades accessibility, it will not be merged — regardless of how useful it is in other ways. Accessibility is the core requirement of this project, not a secondary concern.
If a blind or disabled person tells you that something does not work for them, believe them. You cannot know better than they do what their experience is. Your job as a contributor is to understand the problem, not to explain why it is not one.
These things will result in removal from the project:
- Ableist language, slurs, or jokes
- Telling disabled contributors what they should or should not be able to do
- Arguing that an accessibility problem is "not really a problem" or "easy to work around"
- Talking over or ignoring disabled contributors on decisions that affect them
- Assuming a disabled contributor needs help with something they did not ask for help with
- Harassment of any kind — repeated unwanted contact, personal attacks, or threats
- Dismissing bug reports or feature requests because you personally cannot reproduce the problem (a blind user's device and workflow may be very different from yours)
If someone's behavior in this community is making you uncomfortable, you have two options:
Option 1 — Report through GitHub Open a private report at github.com/tech-master33/baosp/security (even though this is not a security issue, the private reporting form is available there).
Option 2 — Open a public issue
If you are comfortable doing so, open an issue with the label conduct.
Describe what happened and, if you know it, who was involved.
Reports are taken seriously. You will receive an acknowledgment within 72 hours.
Maintainers will review reports and take the following steps as appropriate:
- Warning — A private message explaining what was wrong and what is expected instead
- Temporary ban — Removal from the repository for a set period, with conditions for return
- Permanent ban — Removal from all three repositories with no path to return
The severity of the response matches the severity of the behavior. A first-time thoughtless comment gets a warning. A pattern of behavior or a serious incident gets an immediate ban.
Maintainers are also bound by this code of conduct. Reports about maintainer behavior are handled by the other maintainers.
Saying you meant well does not undo harm. If someone tells you that something you said or did was harmful, the correct response is to listen, acknowledge it, and change the behavior — not to explain your intentions. Good intentions are a starting point, not an excuse.
This code of conduct was written specifically for BAOSP and reflects the values of a project built by and for disabled people. It is not a generic template.
This code of conduct applies to all spaces in this project: GitHub issues, pull requests, discussions, commit messages, and any other venue where project work happens.