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+---
+title: Introduction to SourceHut culture
+---
+
+Welcome to SourceHut!
+
+SourceHut's mission statement is as follows:
+
+> We are here to make free software better. We will be honest, transparent, and
+> empathetic. We care for our users, and we will not exploit them, and we hope
+> that they will reward our care and diligence with success. 
+
+This is the philosophical ethos that underlies our business. This presents
+itself in the way we act. Because we are empathetic, we value accessibility,
+working to make our UI easy to use for anyone and to have great performance on
+low-end hardware and networks so that no one is a second class citizen. We are
+transparent, which motivates our public ops, financial reports, and the fact
+that this page is on a public wiki. We are honest, by telling users quickly and
+frankly when we make mistakes that affect them, and in explaining our incentives
+and motivations so they can make informed decisions about their relationship
+with us.
+
+This extends to our internal culture as well. When we make mistakes or aren't
+sure what to do, we talk to each other about it, as an extension of our
+principle of honesty. We are empathetic, which is why we understand and forgive
+those mistakes, and care for each other as human beings before anything else.
+We have a steadfast commitment to integrity in all of our affairs that we hope
+can set an example for the industry as a whole, and it is our hope that you will
+keep these principles in mind in all of your work with SourceHut.
+
+# In practical terms
+
+Think of SourceHut's engineering culture as a dynamic, mutual collaboration
+between equals, who aim to support each other in achieving our shared ambitions
+in free software. We have essentially attempted to reproduce the FOSS
+community's collaboration environment, and to some extent, governance model, in
+the context of a business.
+
+## What should I work on?
+
+Most SourceHut engineers choose their own work. You may work on the projects
+that you find interesting and important, at your own discretion, including
+projects which are not maintained by or in the direct interests of SourceHut.
+You can also choose your own tasks and priorities within those projects. The
+only caveat is that it must be free and open source software.
+
+You must do this with an attitude that honors and values the feedback and advice
+of your peers, and seek to establish mutual trust. For example, junior engineers,
+and senior engineers who are junior to a new project or field, will generally be
+well-advised to seek the advice of the more experienced peers (be it fellow
+SourceHut staff, or the maintainers of a third-party project) regarding what
+tasks to work on. And likewise, those maintainers and mentors will honor and
+value your growth, experience, feedback, and opinions, to create a healthy
+balance of trust between participants.
+
+## Rely on your peers
+
+**Ask questions early**. We are here to support each other. There is no shame in
+not being sure of what to do, struggling with a hard problem, or having made a
+mistake. The shame is in not trusting your peers to help.
+
+## Accepting responsibilities
+
+In addition to proactively choosing to work on projects and tasks that you find
+important, you may also accept long-term responsibilities that you find
+important. A simple example of this is your long-term commitments as the
+maintainer of your personal FOSS projects, which you may have already made
+before even joining SourceHut. You will have similar opportunities to accept
+responsibilities in the future. For example, you may become responsible for
+various subsystems of sr.ht software, or in third-party projects, or have
+certain responsibilities to your peers and users, such as being on-call for
+infrastructure issues.
+
+This is also done at your discretion, according to your wisdom on what
+responsibilities are important and suited to your skills. This is also a means
+by which you can build trust with your peers and the larger community, by being
+someone they can depend on.
+
+## Communication
+
+We have a private channel on Libera.Chat at #sr.ht.staff, which you will be
+invited to. We also have the #sr.ht and #sr.ht.watercooler channels, which are
+open to the public and respectively handle forge support and SourceHut-adjacent
+discussions. Aim to use the right channel: if appropriate, many matters should
+be discussed in public, but we needn't bother these spaces with the day-to-day
+activities internal to SourceHut.
+
+Also remember that you represent SourceHut when you communicate with the outside
+world — something you are expected to do often. Remember to be respectful,
+to remember the human, and to avoid flamewars. You are building a relationship
+with the community. This is not to say that you shouldn't stand by your
+principles, but to be respectful of those who disagree. Give your peers
+feedback, but remember to praise in public and criticise in private.
+
+## Meetings
+
+Everyone has a bi-weekly 1-on-1 meeting with their assigned mentor. This person
+is there to help you smooth along your work, lend you their ear when you ask for
+advice or are having trouble, and be your advocate to the broader organization.
+The scope and goals of these meetings is a matter for you and your mentor to
+agree upon, and it can evolve over time. This person is also your first stop for
+any formal businessy business, for anything you would talk to a manager about.
+They are not, however, a manager in the traditional sense, and don't have
+special authority over you.
+
+We also have monthly all-hands meetings where we will discuss our long-term
+interests, matters relevant to the whole company, updates on interesting things
+that are being worked on, and so on.
+
+Beyond this, meetings are established on an as-needed basis. For example, we may
+schedule meetings with consulting clients.
+
+## Planning
+
+Informal planning is done in the meetings described above, but formal planning,
+such as ticket tracking, agile-style planning, and so on, is minimal at
+SourceHut. We find that formal systems are often the product of non-engineers
+wanting to boil their engineering teams down to numbers and apersonal measures
+of progress, which is not appropriate for an organization built on mutual trust
+and communication.
+
+However, it is often *useful* to have some means of tracking the things on our
+mind and communicate our intentions to others. Many of the projects we work on
+have bug trackers, and mailing list archives are a good place to put proposals
+and RFCs. We leverage planning tools and systems as they are helpful for us to
+achieve our goals, and remove them when they are not. Work with your peers to
+figure out what works for your projects.
+
+## Time off
+
+If you need time off, take it. It is important for you to be healthy and happy,
+and that means taking time off work sometimes. There are no formal limits on
+time off, and no formal process to request it. Let people know when you'll be
+away so that they can work around your absence. If you have responsibilities
+that you won't be tending to, see to it that they're accounted for first.
+
+## How and when do I get paid?
+
+Make sure Drew has your bank information for wire transfers or direct deposit.
+We prepare invoices on or near the first of the month to send out to our
+clients, and we pay the monthly base to staff on this date as well. We will also
+wire you payment for any consulting invoices which were paid over the previous
+month at this time.
+
+## Expenses
+
+If you have reasonable work expenses, for instance on work-related equipment,
+books, and so on, ask Drew and he'll comp you. SourceHut will also cover your
+travel and accommodations for work-related events, such as conferences, if
+agreed upon in advance.
diff --git a/staff/index.md b/staff/index.md
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+---
+title: Staff Resources
+---
+
+The intended audience for this part of the wiki is SourceHut staff.
+
+- [Culture introduction and onboarding](/staff/culture.md)