The FME Community is a place where users from around the world come together to discuss FME and to help each other achieve their respective goals. It is also where Safe Software employees can interact with users in a public forum.
This article extends Safe's official Code of Conduct and the FME Community Guidelines with guidance on how we hope to make the community a positive and welcoming environment for everyone.
Note that, although we at Safe wrote this set of values, IT IS YOUR COMMUNITY! We welcome user feedback and are happy to work with members who wish to step up and help improve the community in any way.
Community Purpose
To help define our community values, the community team at Safe came up with this purpose statement:
We gather together persons with an interest in FME and how it can be applied,
To allow them to work, learn, network, and socialize together, in a friendly, fun, and collaborative space,
So that all members can advance their personal goals while sharing and building up the wisdom of the community.
Community Values
The values that we believe forge a strong community are as follows:
Respect
Also known as Equality, Friendship, Community, Diversity
Respect is (and should remain) a cornerstone of the FME Community. All members have the right to be respected regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender, language, sexual orientation, age, health, or any other status.
Respect should also include basic politeness, such as the effort by members to ask questions in a complete way, and not to take advantage of the goodwill of others.
Teamwork
Also known as Collaboration, Cooperation, Collective Success, Helping
The FME Community exists as a way for users to work with each other and to help each other. This might be in a simple question-and-answer forum, or cooperation in a group project.
Communities work best with a two-way flow of communication, for example, teamwork is not just sharing knowledge with others, but also giving feedback and thanks for the assistance that you receive.
Enjoyment
Also known as Fun, Happiness, Joy, Adventure, Entertainment
The Safe ethos is to carry out life and work in a fun and enjoyable way. We aim for the FME Community to operate along the same lines. In other words, enjoyment is as much a goal of our community as working, learning, and networking.
We hope that members experience happiness in their community interactions and that they are drawn to community events for entertainment just as much as prizes or personal satisfaction.
Progress
Also known as Learning, Growth, Knowledge, Networking
Progress is about growing as a person and takes many forms. It can be progress through learning, progress through career progression, progress through recognition, or even progress through self-improvement.
The FME Community exists to assist its members in making these sorts of progress.
Achievement
Also known as Mastery, Curiosity,
Progress is often towards a specific goal, such as mastering a certain skill or even satisfying a curious nature. Achievement is the meeting of that goal. For example, members may learn about FME in order to achieve the goal of becoming FME Certified.
The FME Community exists to assist its members in reaching their goals and to share in the joy and celebrations that go with their successes.
Community Voice
A community "voice" defines the tone in which interactions are carried out. We at Safe will try to match the following tones when communicating with community members:
- Approachable: Welcoming, Relatable, Open, Friendly
- Truthful: Trusted, Factual, Dependable
- Conversational: Relaxed, Casual, Laid-back, Fun
- Accessible: Clear, Simple, Uncomplicated, Understandable
- Enthusiastic: Optimistic, Confident, Energetic, Encouraging, Zippy (to match the Zipster!)
We'd like to invite you to join us in taking this approach.
Community Venues
We at Safe take the FME "Community" to exist at any public venue where FME users can interact with each other. We don't restrict our community to this one site and we may recognize a person as a member of the FME Community even without having an active account here!
This includes online forums such as X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn, Reddit, Twitch, Discord, YouTube, and Slack.
Even if we can't enforce it, we'd like the same community values to be used on these sites, though, of course, each of them will have their own values and their own terms and conditions that you should be sure to comply with.