Code of Conduct
Similarly to bylaws, we should have a code of conduct.
Luckily for us there is a fairly comprehensive one available here.
To me everything in there makes sense and seems fairly comprehensive and reasonable, let me know if there's something missing, or something that strikes you as wrong (though I'm not going to have any conversations about "reverse-ism" here).
I'll happily be a part of the harassment response team, though I think we should set up an e-mail forwarder from something like [email protected] to whoever is on the team.
Rory Aronson Sun 5 Oct 2014 12:06PM
Ok, a first go at getting somewhat of an all-encompassing Code of Conduct, mashed together from the links above. Feedback and comments are welcome, and we can always change it once we do "make it official". This is aimed at being used both for our developers and our community at large. It is community/project agnostic except for the contact email and the bit about farming and gardening ;)
== Purpose ==
A primary goal of our community is to be inclusive to the largest number of participants with the most varied and diverse backgrounds possible. As such, we are committed to providing a safe and welcoming environment for all, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, functional diversity, physical appearance, ethnicity, nationality, or religion (or lack thereof); and lifestyle choices and practices including those related to food, health, parenting, drugs, farming and gardening, and employment.
We have written this code of conduct not because we expect bad behavior from our community—which, in our experience, is overwhelmingly kind and civil—but because we believe a clear code of conduct is a necessary part of building a respectful community. Whether you're a regular participant or a newcomer, we care about making this community a safe place for you and we've got your back.
We welcome your feedback on this and every other aspect of our community, and we thank you for working with us to make participation a safe, enjoyable, and friendly experience for everyone.
== Contact Info ==
If you are subject to or witness violations of this Code of Conduct, or have any other concerns, please notify our Safety Team immediately at [email protected].
== Scope ==
This Code of Conduct outlines our expectations for all those who participate in our community, as well as the consequences for unacceptable behavior.
We expect all community participants, developers (paid or otherwise), sponsors, and others, to abide by this Code of Conduct in all community spaces and events—online and in-person—as well as in all one-on-one and other communications in the context of our community.
== Expected Behavior ==
* Participate in an authentic and active way. In doing so, you contribute to the health and longevity of this community.
* Remember that we're a world-wide community, so you might not be communicating in someone else's primary language.
* Be respectful. Not all of us will agree all the time, but disagreement is no excuse for poor behavior and poor manners. We might all experience some frustration now and then, but we cannot allow that frustration to turn into a personal attack. It’s important to remember that a community where people feel uncomfortable or threatened is not a productive one. If someone asks you to stop, then stop.
* Remember that we’re different. Actively seek to acknowledge and respect the perspectives of others. When we disagree, try to understand why. Disagreements, both social and technical, happen all the time. It is important that we resolve disagreements and differing views constructively. The strength of our community comes from our diversity.
* Take care of each other. Alert our Safety Team if you notice a dangerous situation, someone in distress, or violations of this Code of Conduct, even if they seem inconsequential.
* Some community spaces may have additional rules in place, which will be made clearly available to participants. Participants are responsible for knowing and abiding by these rules.
== Unacceptable Behavior ==
* Intimidating, harassing, abusive, exclusionary, discriminatory, derogatory, harmful, or demeaning speech or actions especially regarding a person’s race, gender, sexual orientation, functional diversity, physical appearance, ethnicity, nationality, or religion (or lack thereof); or lifestyle choices and practices including those related to food, health, parenting, drugs, farming and gardening practices, or employment.
* Threats or incitement of violence towards any individual, including encouraging a person to commit suicide or to engage in self-harm.
* Stalking, following, and harassing photography or recording, including logging online activity for harassment purposes.
* Sustained disruption of discussion, talks, or events.
* Pattern of inappropriate social contact such as requesting/assuming inappropriate levels of intimacy with others, continued one-on-one communication, physical contact and simulated physical contact (eg, textual descriptions like “hug” or “backrub”) without consent or after a request to stop.
* Posting (or threatening to post) non-harassing private communication or other people's personally identifying information.
* Use of sexually explicit or violent material or language, unwelcome sexual attention, spamming, trolling, flaming, baiting or other attention-stealing behavior.
* Wearing sexualized clothing/uniforms/costumes, or otherwise create a sexualized environment at in-person events.
* Advocating for, or encouraging, any of the above behavior.
== Consequences of Unacceptable Behavior ==
If any participant violates this Code of Conduct, the Safety Team may take any lawful action we deem appropriate, including but not limited to:
* Warning the offender verbally or in writing.
* Deleting specific pieces of or all content created by the offender.
* Removing the offender's access to the community with no refund.
* Expulsion of the offender from an in-person event with no refund.
* Reporting the offender to appropriate law enforcement agencies.
We prioritize marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort. We will not act on complaints regarding:
* ‘Reverse’ -isms, including ‘reverse racism,’ ‘reverse sexism,’ and ‘cisphobia’
* Reasonable communication of boundaries, such as “leave me alone,” “go away,” or “I’m not discussing this with you."
* Communicating in a ‘tone’ you don’t find congenial
*Criticizing racist, sexist, cissexist, or otherwise oppressive behavior or assumptions
The Safety team reserves the right to exclude people based on their past behavior, including behavior outside our community spaces and behavior towards people who are not in our community.
In order to protect Safety Team volunteers from abuse and burnout, we reserve the right to reject any report we believe to have been made in bad faith. Reports intended to silence legitimate criticism may be deleted without response.
== Addressing Grievances ==
If you feel you have been falsely or unfairly accused of violating this Code of Conduct, you should notify the Safety Team with a concise description of your grievance. Three people will individually examine your grievance and suggest a course of action to either honor your grievance or dismiss it. The popular course of action will be taken.
== License ==
This Code of Conduct is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Special thanks to these resources:
* http://incisive.nu/2014/codes-of-conduct/
* http://citizencodeofconduct.org/
* https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/wiki/Note-development-policy
* https://www.djangoproject.com/conduct/
* http://srccon.org/conduct/
* http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Conference_anti-harassment/Policy
* http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Community_anti-harassment/Policy
* http://geekfeminism.org/about/code-of-conduct/
simonv3 Mon 6 Oct 2014 2:10AM
I've pasted that into this google drive document to allow for easier editing and commenting:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sGYOwEfE43rI-1It9HIfophNI8eSyM94-6MSLlr_ee8/edit?usp=sharing
As far as I'm reading it, this looks really good.
Edit: made two comments
Mike Beggs Mon 6 Oct 2014 2:28PM
This reads quite well and does a good job of laying out the expectations. The GoogleDocs version opened for me as view-only, so I'll describe the few minor edits I suggest here:
4th bullet under "Expected Behavior": I suggest the first sentence read as: "Remember that we're all unique individuals."
For the first bullet point under "Unacceptable behavior" I suggest not listing all the "especially regarding" items, and instead simply state: "Intimidating, harassing, abusive, exclusionary, discriminatory, derogatory, harmful, or demeaning speech or actions for any reason."
I also wonder it the "Unacceptable Behavior" items might benefit from making each a complete directive rather than rely on just the section heading to indicate they are unacceptable. We expect them to be read in the context of their section, yet would it be clearer to end each with the phrase "are unacceptable behaviors"? Or is that too repetitive? For example: "Intimidating, harassing, abusive, exclusionary, discriminatory, derogatory, harmful, or demeaning speech or actions for any reason are unacceptable behaviors", "Threats or incitement of violence towards any individual, including encouraging a person to commit suicide or to engage in self-harm are unacceptable behaviors", "Stalking, following, and harassing photography or recording, including logging online activity for harassment purposes are unacceptable behaviors" etc.
simonv3 Tue 7 Oct 2014 1:16AM
@mikebeggs Sorry, Mike, I thought it would mimick the folder permissions, which might not have had the permissions I though it did.
I've added the ability to comment for anyone with the link.
I've applied some of the changes you suggest, though I have a comment about some of the others:
For the first bullet point under “Unacceptable behavior” I suggest not listing all the “especially regarding” items, and instead simply state: “Intimidating, harassing, abusive, exclusionary, discriminatory, derogatory, harmful, or demeaning speech or actions for any reason.”
While I see that this is broader and more encapsulating, I don't think the original phrasing didn't make this clear, and in fact I think its specificity is a good thing.
As said in the Incisive.nu article:
“Be good to each other” might be the core principle, but unless you dig into the uncomfortable details, any breach of the code is going to come back to entirely subjective, situational judgment—which is what a code is supposed to prevent. There will always be a subjective element, but the point of a code is to offload as much of that as possible into a formal, codified statement…which means you actually have to get down into the things that can go wrong.
And from Ada:
The major weapon of harassers is arguing whether something is actually harassing.
So I'm for specificity.
I'm on the fence about the repeated unacceptable behaviors. I think it might be a matter of style preference, in which case I think we should still keep the header.
Edit: Once we're at a good place, we can also e-mail this to the folks at Ada for some feedback.
Mike Beggs Tue 7 Oct 2014 3:24AM
Simonv3,
I can support the specificity. My concern was making sure we listed everything we needed to and by saying "especially" it might imply that other topics of harassment were not as bad. To me any harassment is unacceptable so I didn't what to get into degrees of severity. But I'm fine with the original and just offered my thoughts.
As for the unacceptable behaviors statements, I intended that the header remain and add the extra phrase to make each statement also stand on its own so anyone of them could be quoted without needing the header. I was envisioning a note to someone along the lines of "Our code of conduct states: 'Threats or incitement of violence towards any individual, including encouraging a person to commit suicide or to engage in self-harm are unacceptable behaviors'. Again, I just wanted to share my thoughts. I'm fine with the original wording relying on the header to set the topic. As you said, it's mostly a style preference. I appreciate your consideration of my suggestions and thank you for taking the time to reply.
simonv3 Tue 7 Oct 2014 5:14AM
I definitely didn't want to come of as not appreciative of your thoughts, I apologize if that's the impression you got! I'm super happy that this is being talked about, and that people agree in general with the direction this is going in.
I see what you mean with the quoting, and that's a fairly legitimate reason to include it. (something we'll have to consider when actually putting the code of conduct up is direct linking to paragraphs). I'll add it in and folks can read it and give their thoughts?
Edit: I've added a "but not limited to" section to take into consideration the fact that harassment doesn't always fall into nice buckets.
Mike Beggs Tue 7 Oct 2014 1:40PM
@simonv3 no worries. I have quite the opposite impression and feel my input is fully appreciated.
I think the code of conduct is reading quite well and the Google doc allowed me to post some suggestions (which by the way I think is a better way to proceed than letting everyone actually edit the text, even if all the edits are tracked.)
simonv3 Wed 8 Oct 2014 2:31AM
Cheers! I've made appropriate changes.
If everyone agrees, with where this is at, I'll send it to the Ada Initiative folks to hear their thoughts on it by tomorrow.
Mike Beggs Wed 8 Oct 2014 3:05AM
A few typos I commented on, but otherwise I agree with it. Send it.
Rory Aronson · Sun 5 Oct 2014 11:17AM
Thanks for getting this started and stepping up to help out on the safety team Simon! Some additional context for everyone else: http://incisive.nu/2014/codes-of-conduct/
I looked through several other codes of conduct last night:
I think that the same Code of Conduct should not only apply to our development group here and on GitHub, but also to our community at-large of OpenFarm users. Just as people must checkbox a terms or service when signing up, I think they should checkbox to understanding our Code of Conduct. Our users are contributors too, and we need to make sure the forums, Guides themselves, and any other spaces relating to OpenFarm are safe.
Also, if we do plan on having in-person meetups, hackathons, seed-swapping session, whatever, it will be important to have the more in-person based language/clauses in the Code.
I am working on a mashup of the Codes I have looked at. I will publish it here shortly for review.