Semi-OT: When I saw this under "Contribute > Communication Guidelines" I got the impression that people wanting to contribute should read this and that it relates to how we communicate on github for issues and PRs.

Should we rename the page to "Public communication guidelines" (or "Social media communication guidelines", which is maybe slightly too narrow but even more clear that not every contributor does not have to care about it.

I wrote the communications guide years back 'cause I was trying to get folks to help w/ social media and discourse and the like, so it was always intended as "comms guide when acting as a representative of the project" - i.e. any kinda community facing/community building role. The stock github responses PR is #23109, which should be a lot easier to get in now that we've rewritten workflows again.

But also frankly, the way I see it is that one of the responsibilities of being a maintainer is being a public facing representative of the project. I can tell a contributor "no no, I'm speaking for me, not Matplotlib" but like if I'm being a jerk that's what the culture of the project is gonna read as. Which is also why I put this in the maintainers section rather then one of the other bins. We can definitely have a discussion on if this is the direction folks want to aim for w/ our communications <- the contents of this PR were intended to seed a discussion around our communication strategy/goals/objectives".

Though to be clear, I'm not trying to police how maintainers communicate , even if I had the authority to. This PR is mostly aimed at adding the context around why the guidelines are what they are. For example, that our topics list is viz and other libraries 'cause our mission is viz+extensibility, our social media is chill b/c our mission is empowering folks to build things, etc.-> which found name: community engagement guidelines

The comm guide state the scope at the top

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.

I'd like to capture this in the title, in particular with the intent to make it obvious for a first-time contributor that they do not need to worry about this when posting an issue or PR.

So I think community engagement should work then b/c most folks don't think of issues/PRs as community engagement, but also

in particular with the intent to make it obvious for a first-time contributor that they do not need to worry about this when posting an issue or PR.

What in the guide do you think would make a new contributor think that they DO have to worry about this? I pulled the sentence you're highlighting up to the top so that if they do land here they can bounce out, but I'm also a little confused where your concern is coming from given that the only explicit "how to communicate" guidelines are in the social media subsection.

What in the guide do you think would make a new contributor think that they DO have to worry about this?

Nothing in there, it's the title that is too generic. When you go to contribution entry page https://matplotlib.org/devdocs/devel/index.html, you get a side bar with lots of entries:

which is quite overwhelming, For some, like Release guide, it's clear that I as a first-time contributor does not have to care about. It would be helpful if that would come across also in the communication heading (and/or possibly better separation between topics relevant to the majority of contributors, and topics only relevant to special people).

Yeah I think the problem is more that the card headers don't show up as page headers and therefore that organization isn't in the sidebar but maybe this is clearer?

ETA: at the least, that sidebar should maybe follow the page ordering in the same way as the page/listed in the page ?

Borrowing from cscce, maybe call this the "community management guide"? It's a bit broader than the specifics but also if you're looking for a "no not doing that" title it'll work? & matches a dpl title like release guide manages release manager?

The organization of the index is ideally the organization of the cards.

The organization of the index is ideally the organization of the cards.

working towards that? if #27213 goes in, as a follow up in that PR I have proposals to clean up the rest of the policy and guidelines so at least each card is just a toc