Standards of conduct for maintainers

Version 3

GENUKI standards

The GENUKI standards of conduct are described in this page. Maintainers operate under a code of conduct which reflects the GENUKI standards. Maintainers also have a set of rights and responsibilities.

Keep within the law

Maintainers are expected to adhere to all the laws which apply to the publication of online information. In particular, maintainers are expected to ensure their pages do not infringe the either the letter or the spirit of legislation on Copyright, Accessibility and Data Protection.

Protect GENUKI's intellectual property and trademark

Maintainers are expected to protect the intellectual property contained within or referenced by the GENUKI website(s) by ensuring that GENUKI's intellectual property (or that referenced by GENUKI) is properly marked as such and protected.

Maintainers must not register new domain names including the string "genuki" without prior permission from the GENUKI Trustees.

Avoid bringing GENUKI into disrepute

Maintainers are expected to avoid bringing GENUKI into disrepute. You should take care when engaging in exchanges with readers of your GENUKI pages who are critical of their content. No matter how unreasonable your correspondent's attitude, it is important that you remain calm, logical and polite. If your correspondent continues to act unreasonably, contact the GENUKI Trustees, for advice and assistance.

Promote good relations

We rely on access to information from others, and must do everything we can to build a climate of trust and cooperation with the relevant archive and church authorities, as well as cement our existing cooperation with organisations such as Record Offices and Family History Societies.

Maintainers must be careful not to offend the people who possess information, in the various libraries, archives, churches, societies, etc., in order to retain their continued cooperation.

Participate in discussions

From time to time, issues arise which are likely to affect the operation, structure, organisation and even the existence, of GENUKI. The maintainers have, as a body, an enormous amount of invaluable experience and need to play a major role in these policy discussions. Maintainers should also feel free to raise policy issues and respond to questions of policy from the Trustees.

Maintain at least a minimum role

There are times when a maintainer will find it difficult to exercise an active role in GENUKI. Personal circumstances might mean you don't have enough time or energy to seek out new information and update your pages to refer to it. The minimum role of a GENUKI maintainer involves fixing broken links, and keeping in contact.

• Fixing broken links

  The Spider is run monthly and examines links from all GENUKI pages to test that all such links remain alive. Broken links, i.e., links from GENUKI pages which cannot be resolved, are listed by county and page, and maintainers should look at the Spider output and repair their broken links. There is more detail on fixing broken links.

• Keeping in contact

  It's important that maintainers stay in contact with the GENUKI Trustees and the system administrator. There are at least two places where your current email address needs to be up to date so that you can be contacted when the need arises.

  • The maintainers mailing list which is a closed list restricted to maintainers of counties and other sections of GENUKI. You should subscribe to this list and if you change your email address, you need to change your mailing list subscription. See the help and advice on keeping your email and mailing list address up to date.

  • In the maintainer's table which holds your name and email address amongst other things. See the help and advice on the Maintainer's Table.

What to do if you no longer wish to continue maintaining your section

Circumstances change over time and we will all reach a point where we can no longer continue GENUKI section maintenance.

• In the majority of cases it will be a fairly slow process, where you can continue the job but would like somebody else to take over. So contact the Trustees and they will mark your county as being in care and maintenance and therefore available for somebody else to take over. But you will continue working on it with a minimum of fixing bad links, but you can also continue to add to it.

• The final stage is when you can no longer carry on, and this could of course happen suddenly without warning. Again contact should be made with the Trustees. If your pages are not hosted on genuki.org.uk they will move them, and put them under care and maintenance, probably initially asking for a volunteer to do that via the maintainers mailing list, but also using any other means they think appropriate.

• If you have set up a sub-domain or directory including the string "genuki" in the name, you must stop using it when you cease to be a GENUKI maintainer. And, if you have registered a domain including "genuki" in the name, you must transfer the registration to the GENUKI Trustees.