About the Code of Conduct
Why have a Code of Conduct?
Online communities include people from many different backgrounds. The Event Smart contributors are committed to providing a friendly, safe and welcoming environment for all, regardless of age, disability, gender, nationality, race, religion, sexuality, or similar personal characteristic.
The first goal of the Code of Conduct (CoC) is to specify a baseline standard of behavior so that people with different social values and communication styles can talk about Event Smart effectively, productively, and respectfully.
The second goal is to provide a mechanism for resolving conflicts in the community when they arise.
The third goal of the Code of Conduct is to make our community welcoming to people from different backgrounds. Diversity is critical to the project; for Event Smart to be successful, it needs contributors and users from all backgrounds.
With that said, a healthy community must allow for disagreement and debate. The Code of Conduct is not a mechanism for people to silence others with whom they disagree.
Where does the Code of Conduct apply?
If you participate in or contribute to the Event Smart ecosystem in any way, you are encouraged to follow the Code of Conduct while doing so.
Explicit enforcement of the Code of Conduct applies to the official communities operated by Event Smart.
Event Smart values
These are the values to which people in the Event Smart community should aspire.
- Be friendly and welcoming
- Be patient
- Remember that people have varying communication styles and that not everyone is using their native language. (Meaning and tone can be lost in translation.)
- Be thoughtful
- Productive communication requires effort. Think about how your words will be interpreted.
- Remember that sometimes it is best to refrain entirely from commenting.
- Be respectful
- In particular, respect differences of opinion.
- Be charitable
- Interpret the arguments of others in good faith, do not seek to disagree.
- When we do disagree, try to understand why.
- Avoid destructive behavior:
- Derailing: stay on topic; if you want to talk about something else, start a new conversation.
- Unconstructive criticism: don’t merely decry the current state of affairs; offer—or at least solicit—suggestions as to how things may be improved.
- Snarking (pithy, unproductive, sniping comments)
- Discussing potentially offensive or sensitive issues; this all too often leads to unnecessary conflict.
- Microaggressions: brief and commonplace verbal, behavioral and environmental indignities that communicate hostile, derogatory or negative slights and insults to a person or group.
People are complicated. You should expect to be misunderstood and to misunderstand others; when this inevitably occurs, resist the urge to be defensive or assign blame. Try not to take offense where no offense was intended. Give people the benefit of the doubt. Even if the intent was to provoke, do not rise to it. It is the responsibility of all parties to de-escalate conflict when it arises.
Unwelcome behavior
These actions are explicitly forbidden in Event Smart spaces:
- Insulting, demeaning, hateful, or threatening remarks.
- Discrimination based on age, disability, gender, nationality, race, religion, sexuality, or similar personal characteristic.
- Bullying or systematic harassment.
- Unwelcome sexual advances.
- Incitement to any of these.
Moderation
The Event Smart communities are not free speech venues; they are for discussing a wide array of event-related topics. These spaces have moderators. The goal of the moderators is to facilitate civil discussions.
When using the official Event Smart communities you should act in the spirit of the values above. If you conduct yourself in a way that is explicitly forbidden by the CoC, you will be warned and asked to stop. If you do not stop, you will be removed from our community temporarily. Repeated, willful breaches of the CoC will result in a permanent ban.
Moderators are held to a higher standard than other community members. If a moderator creates an inappropriate situation, they should expect less leeway than others, and should expect to be removed from their position if they cannot adhere to the CoC.
Complaints about moderator actions must be handled using the reporting process below.
Reporting issues
The Code of Conduct moderators are a group of people that represent the Event Smart community. They are responsible for handling conduct-related issues. Their purpose is to de-escalate conflicts and try to resolve issues to the satisfaction of all parties. They are:
- Garth Koyle <garth@eventespresso.com>, @garthkoyle
- Seth Shoultes <seth@eventespresso.com>, @sethshoultes
- Darren Ethier <darren@eventespresso.com>, @nerrad
If you encounter a conduct-related issue, you should report it to the moderators using the process described below. Do not post about the issue publicly or try to rally sentiment against a particular individual or group.
- Mail support@eventsmart.com or contact Event Smart.
- Your message will reach the moderators.
- Reports are confidential with Moderators.
- Should you choose to remain anonymous then the moderators cannot notify you of the outcome of your report.
- You may contact a member of the group directly if you do not feel comfortable contacting the group as a whole. That member will then raise the issue with the Moderators as a whole, preserving the privacy of the reporter (if desired).
- If your report concerns a member of the moderators they will be recused from moderator discussions of the report.
- The moderators will strive to handle reports with discretion and sensitivity, to protect the privacy of the involved parties, and to avoid conflicts of interest.
- You should receive a response within 48 hours (likely sooner). (Should you choose to contact a single moderator, it may take longer to receive a response.)
- The moderator will meet to review the incident and determine what happened.
- With the permission of person reporting the incident, the moderator may reach out to other community members for more context.
- The moderator will reach a decision as to how to act. These may include:
- Nothing.
- A request for a private or public apology.
- A private or public warning.
- An imposed vacation (for instance, asking someone to abstain for a week from a mailing list or IRC).
- A permanent or temporary ban from some or all Event Smart communities.
- The moderator will reach out to the original reporter to let them know the decision.
- Appeals to the decision may be made to the moderator, or to any of its members directly.
Note that the goal of the Code of Conduct and the moderator is to resolve conflicts in the most harmonious way possible. We hope that in most cases issues may be resolved through polite discussion and mutual agreement. Bannings and other forceful measures are to be employed only as a last resort.
Changes to the Code of Conduct (including to the members of the moderator) should be proposed by contacting Event Smart directly.
Summary
- Treat everyone with respect and kindness.
- Be thoughtful in how you communicate.
- Don’t be destructive or inflammatory.
- If you encounter an issue, please mail support@eventsmart.com.
Name Policy
The use of names that people use outside of the internet is important and fosters more community openness. We value names because our interactions are with real people, not some avatar or a username. We encourage all members use their full name when participating in our online communities.
We also ask that members use login/usernames that are non-offensive. Your username needn’t be your full name, but should not contain offensive terms.
Language Policy
We are working hard to keep the public spaces family friendly and as inclusive as possible. At the admins discretion, words that are deemed inappropriate or offensive will be moderated. Please reach out to the admin group for a list of words that are being moderated.
Moderation
Users should flag inappropriate behaviour to moderators or administrators rather than addressing it themselves. This includes but is not limited to reporting: violations of this code of conduct, spam messages, messages posted in the wrong channel or category.
Moderator guidelines for applying policies and the CoC
It is important that all users’ questions, answers and comments are in line with this CoC, as well as with the category and topic, or channel, they belong to. When deciding to approach a user, moderators and administrators must always assume intentions are good, which is usually the case. Over-moderation is harmful to the atmosphere of the community and should be avoided.
Expectations for moderator enforcement
While in practice most actions from moderators and administrators will be friendly reminders, they should act on complaints/reports quickly and involve other team members if necessary. They should take appropriate, usually private, action if they see any abuse or harassment. They must be sensitive to cultural differences, time zones, etc., but take prompt action when necessary. A moderator is one who exists to serve the community.
Suggested strategies for moderators when dealing with observed violations
Except in the most egregious cases, moderators will follow these guidelines:
- First, attempt to privately message the user and point out to them that their behavior violates our CoC. Include a link to the CoC in that message.
- If the user does not respond to a request, escalate to the private #moderators channel on eventsmart.slack.com to discuss the incident with fellow community moderators.
- Once the issue has been discussed with the fellow community moderators, follow the reporting guidelines below.
In those cases of obvious, flagrant violations, moderators will remove the post immediately, and bring the issue to the attention of the private #moderators slack channel.
Dealing with Spam
Although not explicitly called out in this CoC, we ask that all moderators be aware of and intervene in the case of spam.
Spam is a post or a series of posts where the content is primarily solicitation, nonsense, overly short/long, or off-topic. Posts where the content is not hand-crafted or is too generic/useless may also be considered spam. Spam accounts are user accounts which post spam content or are created in series to secure access to the site and its privileges, or both. Spam posts and accounts may be automated or manual. If a moderator notices multiple spam accounts in succession, the IP address may be blacklisted.
We realize spam can be hard to define in some cases, so we will rely on the community or moderators to identify and flag it and handle it appropriately. Obvious spam posts should be promptly deleted; non-obvious spam may be flagged for review. Users are encouraged to flag posts as spam to help bring them to a moderator’s attention.
Not all spam posts are by spam users. For example, a legitimate user account may be compromised. If a moderator notices a reputable user account posting spam, the spam post(s) should be deleted immediately and the user notified. If spam posts continue, the account may be suspended until the user can regain control of his/her account.
Commercial content is allowed if relevant to answering a question or keeping inline with a topic. More specific policies and guidelines governing commercial content forthcoming.
Reporting guidelines
If someone is subject to or witnesses unacceptable behavior, or has any other concerns, they are strongly encouraged to notify an moderator or a Event Smart core team member as soon as possible. Every reported concern will follow this workflow until resolved:
- Make contact by emailing support@eventsmart.com
- Your email message will reach the Event Smart core team.
- Reports will be confidential within theEvent Smart core team.
- Alternatively, you may contact one of the members of the Event Smart core team directly if you feel more comfortable (see below).
- You will receive a response within 24-48 hours (very likely sooner).
- The group will review the incident and determine what happened.
- They may reach out to other community members for more context.
- The team will reach a decision as to how to act. These include:
- Nothing.
- A private reprimand from the Event Smart team to the individual(s) involved.
- An imposed vacation (i.e. asking someone to “take a week off” from all Event Smart moderated properties).
- A request for a private or public apology.
- A temporary or permanent ban from some or all Event Smart moderated properties.Event Smart core team will reach out to the original reporter to let them know what action we decided to take.
- Appeals to the decision may be made to the Event Smart core team directly, or any member of the administration team thereof.
Administrators
Here is the list of people who are administrators for our online communities. If you have any issues or need help, please feel free to reach out to anyone on this list.
The role of Event Smart: (Core Team):
- They are the stewards for the different online communities.
- They have rights in the systems tied to the primary owner role.
- They act as administrators.
The role of administrators:
- They monitor the public forums, channels and threads for inappropriate behavior.
- They have full voting rights for decisions that affect the communities.
- They have rights in the systems tied to the admin role.
Primary Owner: Event Smart (support@eventsmart.com)
Event Smart Core Team: Jonathan Wilson, Josh Feck, Lorenzo Caum, Tony Warwick
Administrators: Garth Koyle, Seth Shoultes, Darren Ethier
Acknowledgements
Parts of this document were derived from the Code of Conduct documents of the Django, FreeBSD, Rust, and GoBridge projects.