Summary of processes

When the Code of Conduct Committee receives a report of a possible Code of Conduct violation, they will:

1. Acknowledge the receipt of the report.
2. Evaluate conflicts of interest.
3. Call for a discussion amongst Code of Conduct committee members who do not have a conflict of interest.
4. Evaluate the reported incident.
5. Propose and vote on a response or action plan, if appropriate.
6. Notify the Coding Grace of any action plan and/or responses.
7. Follow up with the reported person.
8. Decide further responses.
9. Follow up with the reporter.
10. After each event / incident, a Code of Conduct transparency report will be published by the committee with anonymised information about any violations that might have occurred and resolution of the incident.

Acknowledge the report

Reporters should receive an emailed acknowledgment of the receipt of their report within 1 week. The Code of Conduct Committee will also aim to provide the reporter a weekly email update to inform them of the stage of any ongoing investigation and any time estimates.

Conflict of interest policy

Examples of conflicts of interest include:

• The reporter or reported person is someone you have an important professional relationship with, either a manager, a colleague, or a direct client.
• You have a romantic or platonic relationship with either the reporter or the reported person. It’s fine to participate if they are an acquaintance.
• The reporter or reported person is your family member.
• The reporter or reported person is a maintainer who regularly reviews your contributions

Code of Conduct committee members do not need to state why they have a conflict of interest, only that one exists. Other committee members should not ask why the person has a conflict of interest.

Anyone who has a conflict of interest will remove themselves from the discussion of the incident, and recuse themselves from voting on a response to the report.

Evaluating a report

In evaluating a report the Code of Conduct committee will consider the following, as well as any other considerations they feel appropriate.

Nature of incident

• Is this a Code of Conduct violation? Is this behaviour on our list of inappropriate behaviour? Is it borderline inappropriate behaviour? Does it violate our community norms?
• Did this occur in a space that is within our Code of Conduct’s scope? If the incident occurred outside the community, but a community member’s mental health or physical safety may be negatively impacted if no action is taken, the incident may be in scope. Private conversations related to Coding Grace in online community spaces are also in scope.

Impact

• Did this incident occur in a private conversation or in a public space? Incidents that all community members can see will have more negative impact.
• Does this behaviour negatively impact a marginalised group in our community? Is the reporter a person from a marginalised group in our community? How is the reporter being negatively impacted by the reported person’s behaviour? Are members of the marginalised group likely to disengage with the community if no action was taken on this report?
• Does this incident involve a community leader? Community members often look up to community leaders to set the standard of acceptable behaviour.

Risk

• Does this incident include sexual harassment?
• Does this pose a safety risk? Does the behaviour put a person’s physical safety at risk? Will this incident severely negatively impact someone’s mental health?
• Is there a risk of this behaviour being repeated? Does the reported person understand why their behaviour was inappropriate? Is there an established pattern of behaviour from past reports?

Reports which involve higher risk or higher impact may face more severe consequences than reports which involve lower risk or lower impact.

Propose a plan to address the incident

The Code of Conduct committee will determine a concrete plan that ensures the inappropriate behaviour is not repeated. The Code of Conduct committee will also discuss what actions may need to be taken if the reported person does not agree to the proposed action plan.

Oftentimes, the Code of Conduct committee will advise the reported person to be more mindful of their own language or actions that are considered as disrespectful and/or offensive to others in the community. What follows are examples of possible action plans for more serious incidents that occur in online and conference spaces under the scope of this Code of Conduct. This list is not all-inclusive, and the Code of Conduct committee reserves the right to take other actions it deems necessary.

• Requiring that the reported person not use specific language
• Requiring that the reported person not join in on specific types of discussions
• Requiring that the reported person not send private messages to a community member
• Requiring that the reported person not join specific communication channels
• Removing the reported person from administrator or moderator rights to community infrastructure
• Recommending that the Coding Grace Foundation remove a person from their duties and responsibilities, from leadership of relevant organisations, or membership in relevant organisations

Propose a response

What follows are examples of possible responses to an incident report. This consequences list is not all-inclusive, and the Code of Conduct committee reserves the right to take any action it deems necessary.

Possible private responses to an incident include:

• Nothing, if the behaviour was determined to not be a Code of Conduct violation
• A verbal or emailed warning
• A final warning
• Temporarily removing the reported person from the event or online community
• Permanently removing the reported person from the event or online community

Follow up with the reported person

The Code of Conduct committee will work with the event organisers or online community administrators/moderators to draft a response to the reported person. The email should contain:

• A description of the person’s behaviour in neutral language
• The negative impact of that behaviour
• A concrete proposal of an action plan
• Any response to their behaviour

The Code of Conduct committee should not state who reported this incident. They should attempt to anonymise any identifying information from the report. The reported person should be discouraged from contacting the reporter to discuss the report. If they wish to apologise to the reporter, the committee can accept the apology on behalf of the reporter.

Decide further responses

If the reported person provides additional context, the Code of Conduct Committee may need to re-evaluate the action plan and response.

Follow up with the reporter

A person who makes a report should receive a follow up email stating what action was taken in response to the report. If the committee decided no response was needed, they should provide an email explaining why it was not a Code of Conduct violation, including if they think the report was not made in good faith. Please note that reports that are not made in good faith (such as “reverse sexism” or “reverse racism”) may receive no response.

The follow up email should be sent no later than one week after the receipt of the report. If deliberation or follow up with the reported person takes longer than one week, the committee should send a weekly status email to the reporter.

Record the occurrence

The incident and the communications and any other relevant information should be recorded on the Coding Grace’s Google Drive (or somewhere determined by the Coding Grace Foundation board), accessible only to the current Code of Conduct committee members; this is to ensure that the organisation is aware of any repeat offences.

Attribution

This is based on EuroPython Society Code of Conduct which is based on the PyCon Code of Conduct is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Ada Initiative’s guide titled “Conference anti-harassment/Responding to Reports” is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License

Audrey Eschright of Safety First PDX provided the impact vs risk assessment framework, which is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0 Unported License by Audrey Eschright of Safety First PDX

Code of Conduct template was created by Otter Tech and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License