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Style Guide

Inclusive Language

Where possible use gender-neutral language.

For example:

  • Recommended: A maintainer should try to be kind yet constructive in their feedback.
  • Not recommended: A maintainer should try to be kind yet constructive in his feedback.

Avoid terms which may have offensive connotations.

For example:

  • Recommended: Contributors should push their Pull Requests to the main branch.
  • Not recommended: Contributors should push their Pull Requests to the master branch.

Grammar & Punctuation

Capitalisation

Use uppercase to describe a product, a feature, the first letter of a sentence, or a person's name.

For example:

  • Recommended: We suggest you may want to look at our Contributing guide on GitHub.
  • Not recommended: We suggest you may want to look at our contributing guide on github.

Clarity

Abbreviations

Do not assume that everyone understands abbreviations, always spell out the full term.

For example:

  • Recommended: I will merge your Pull Request.
  • Not recommended: I will merge your PR.

Accessibility

Images

Use Alternative Text to describe images (Alt Text).

Emojis

  1. Avoid using emojis as bullet points or numbered lists.

For example:

Not this:

  • 1️⃣ Fork the repo
  • 2️⃣ Visit the BioDrop repo

Use this:

  • 1. Fork the repo
  • 2️. Visit the BioDrop repo

  1. Avoid using emojis in the middle of a sentence.

    For example:

    • Not this: There are 4️⃣ ways you can run the project
    • Use this: There are 4 ways you can run the project