code-of-conduct

From IndieWeb

IndieWeb code of conduct tl;dr:

Be respectful of other people, respectfully ask people to stop if you are bothered, and if you can't resolve an issue, contact staff. If you are being a problem, it will be apparent and you'll be asked to leave.

Based on previous excellent work by others, this is a living code of conduct. This code of conduct applies to all IndieWeb spaces both online and off, including our events, IRC channel, and wiki.


Respect

IndieWeb is an intentionally positive community that recognizes and celebrates the creativity and collaboration of independent creators (and independence) and the diversity of people, cultures, and opinions that they bring to IndieWeb.

IndieWeb spaces are an inclusive environment, based on treating all individuals respectfully, regardless of gender (including transgender status), sexual orientation, age, disability, medical conditions, race and/or ethnicity, caste, nationality, religion (or lack thereof), physical appearance, politics, ideology (real world or tech), or software preferences.

We value respectful behavior above individual opinions.

Respectful behavior includes:

  • Be considerate, kind, constructive, and helpful.
  • Avoid demeaning, discriminatory, harassing, hateful, gratuitous or off-topic sexual (body part), or physically threatening behavior, speech, text, names, and imagery.
  • If you're not sure, ask someone instead of assuming.

IndieWeb prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort. IndieWeb organizers reserve the right not to 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

(Thanks to XOXO for providing the above paragraph and list on marginalized people’s safety with a CC-BY license)

Resolve Peacefully

We believe peer to peer discussions, feedback, corrections can help build a stronger, safer, and more welcoming community.

If you see someone behaving disrespectfully, you are encouraged to respectfully discourage them from such behavior. Expect that others in the community wish to help keep the community respectful and welcome your input in doing so.

If you experience disrespectful behavior and feel in any way unable to respond or resolve it respectfully (for any reason), please immediately bring it to the attention of an organizer. We want to hear from you about anything that you feel is disrespectful, threatening, or just icky in any way. We will listen and work to resolve the matter.

Apologize for Mistakes

Should you catch yourself behaving disrespectfully, or be confronted as such, own up to your words and actions, and apologize accordingly. No one is perfect, and even well-intentioned people make mistakes. What matters is how you handle them, and avoiding repeating them in the future.

Consequences

If the organizers determine that an event participant is behaving disrespectfully, the organizers may take any action they deem appropriate, up to and including expulsion and exclusion from the event without warning or refund.

As organizers, we will seek to resolve conflicts peacefully and in a manner that is positive for the community. We can't foresee every situation however, and thus if in the organizers' judgment the best thing to do is to ask a disrespectful individual to leave, we will do so.

Resolving an Issue

If you believe you’re experiencing practices at an IndieWeb event which doesn’t meet the policies below, or if you feel you are being harassed in any way, please immediately contact the event organizer(s) or designated code of conduct responders for the event.

If you believe you’re experiencing practices in chat or at an event which don’t meet the policies above, please immediately contact any ally you may know. Anyone in the community should feel empowered to resolve issues and uphold our high standards.

However if you feel the issue requires escalation to a community organizer please contact:

License

Like everything else posted on IndieWeb.org, this Code of Conduct is released to the public domain according to CC0 (see the wiki's copyright page for details).

Open Code of Conduct

You can re-use the IndieWeb code-of-conduct for your own community by:

  1. Copy/paste the whole thing (the CC0 license lets you do this)
  2. Replace "IndieWeb" with the name of your organization
  3. Make any organization-specific customizations you think are needed
  4. You may attribute indieweb.org/code-of-conduct as a source if you wish
  5. Consider also licensing your Code of Conduct with the CC0 license so others may easily re-use it as well
  6. Drop us a line in IRC! We'd love to add yours to our list of similar codes of conduct, and see what improvements you've made.


Thanks

Thank you to every IndieWeb community member for helping making IndieWeb the respectful and inclusive community that it is.

Signed

Organizers:

  • Tantek 18:28, 14 February 2013 (PST)
  • Aaronparecki.com 16:55, 16 February 2013 (PST)
  • ... (fellow organizers, please sign with ~~~~)

And anyone else that wishes to help uphold this code of conduct and the principles therein:

Testimonials

Feedback

Similar Codes of Conduct

The following codes of conduct are based on this one, and are similar in terms of focusing on positive behaviors and community empowerment.

See Also