└── README.md


/README.md:
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 1 | # Government community on GitHub
 2 | 
 3 | Welcome to the government community on GitHub, a collaborative community for sharing best practices in furtherance of open source, open data, and open government efforts. To encourage open dialog, the community is a semi-private community, with only government employees having access.
 4 | 
 5 | ## Who's eligible?
 6 | 
 7 | Anyone with a government email address is encouraged to participate, including national/federal, state, local, and municipal employees. That means if your email ends in `.gov`, `.gov.uk`, `ci.champaign.il.us`, etc., you are eligible. Also, you need to be human. Agency accounts and robots need not apply. 
 8 | 
 9 | If you're curious, [the constantly updated list of approved domains](https://github.com/benbalter/gman/blob/master/config/domains.txt) is available as part of the [GMan open source project](https://github.com/benbalter/gman).
10 | 
11 | ## How to join
12 | 
13 | In order to join the community, we must first confirm that you are, in fact, a government employee:
14 | 
15 | 1. If you don't already have one, [sign up](http://github.com/join) for a GitHub account. GitHub accounts should be personal to you. Human-sounding names like @benbalter are preferred over organization-specific names like @benbalter_abc_agency.
16 | 
17 | 2. Ensure that your government email is associated with your account. If you already have a GitHub account, you can simply [add your government email address](https://github.com/settings/emails) to your account.
18 | 
19 | 3. [Confirm your government email address](https://help.github.com/articles/setting-up-email-verification).
20 | 
21 | 4. Visit [government-community.githubapp.com](https://government-community.githubapp.com/government/best-practices) in your web browser.
22 | 
23 | 5. You should be automatically added and redirected to the GitHub Government community. You now have access to and can participate in the discussions available at [github.com/government](https://github.com/government).
24 | 
25 | ## Questions
26 | 
27 | *If you have any questions or have trouble confirming your identity above, please email [government@github.com](mailto:government@github.com).*
28 | 


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