First, some context.
I urged the AltConf organizers to publish a Code of Conduct for their attendees and speakers. In that Twitter conversation, I repeatedly cited Ashe Dryden's Code of Conduct 101 + FAQ.
This is what they published on their website as their code of conduct (as of 2014-05-06):
AltConf is provided free of charge, on a first-come, first-served basis, without warranty or liability, by volunteers, for the good of our community.
To participate in our conference in any way (attendee, speaker, sponsor, etc), you must agree to abide by the instructions of the volunteers and the decisions of the organizers, and acknowledge that you may be barred from participation at any time, for any reason.
We ask you to help make our conference a place where everyone feels safe and welcome. Harassment of any form won't be tolerated. If you feel, at any time, for any reason, that you, or anyone else, are not safe and welcome, contact any volunteer immediately, or email [address omitted —PRH].
After they put that up, I told them that it's a start, but needs more. AltConf co-founder Mike Lee asked me to elaborate. This is what I told them.
We don't explicitly tell people we won't tolerate them starting fires. We will swiftly and seriously deal with anyone caught lighting fires.
The tricky part here is that there are a lot more people in our industry who think it's OK to make sexist jokes, have bikini models on slides, use “your grandma” as an example of a non-technical person, assume that women are marketing or HR or graphic design or otherwise not coders, or other problematic behaviors than there are people in our industry who think it's OK to light other people's things on fire.
I understand the desire to assume “we're all adults here” and therefore everybody can be trusted to behave respectfully, but history has shown that to be false—adults can and do sometimes behave terribly towards each other, and that can sometimes include adults you think you know to be good people.
I also understand the desire not to have a long boilerplate document. TL;DR is a real thing that you must draft around.
At the same time, as I've said before, there are people who think certain behaviors are OK, whom you'd probably like to scare away from your conference if possible, given the alternative possibility that the risk of them attending may scare away other people who'd be the victims of those behaviors.
I do like the idea [of Mike Lee's] of being more positive than negative. You could have rules like:
- Treat everybody attending the conference as your peers, regardless of their gender, sexual orientation, race, abilities, nationality, age, etc.—because they are.
- Treat this as a gathering of professionals—because it is. Fun is OK, but putting people down is not.
- Talk (and, if presenting, design your slides) like you're talking to grown-ups in the presence of children—because you probably will be.
- Treat everyone as you would have them treat you.
Modify and/or extend as you see fit.
[Paragraph omitted because it's specific to AltConf's internal planning. Basically, I recommended publishing more of an internal document in their external “attending” page.]
My ultimate point is that a CoC (or “Safe and Welcome Policy” or whatever you want to call it) must be explicit to serve its purposes, which are:
- Warning those who would behave badly (including, potentially, speakers) that the listed brands of bad behavior will not be tolerated, so they should either suppress those urges or stay out; and
- Assuring attendees (including speakers) that other attendees (including speakers) have been given the above warning.
- Assuring attendees (including speakers) that the listed brands of bad behavior are anathema to the organizers.
- Assuring attendees (including speakers) that they will have a means to report listed bad behavior if somebody does try it.
- Assuring attendees (including speakers) that such reports will be taken seriously, not dismissed or victim-blamed away, and
- Assuring attendees (including speakers) that any misbehaving attendee (or speaker) will be told to stop, and, if necessary, removed.
I worry that what you've got right now fails most of the above tests.
- It does not list specific behaviors, so attendees (including speakers) who would do them may think the warning does not apply to them.
- It does not list specific behaviors, so attendees (including speakers) who would be victims of them may imagine attendees behaving in any of the non-“adult” ways not listed.
- It does not list specific behaviors, so attendees (including speakers) who would be victims are likely to wonder what, specifically, you consider unacceptable, and what you in fact consider acceptable.
- It does not list specific behaviors, so attendees (including speakers) who would be victims are likely to wonder how seriously they'll be taken if they report problematic behaviors that fall short of blatant assault.
The part about how to report a problem seems good to me, but the definition of a problem is ill-specified.
For that matter, you also have the opposite problem: Your use of the word “harassment” is too specific. Not all problematic behaviors fit under the relatively narrow umbrella of “harassment”. Is putting a bikini model on the screen harassment? I wouldn't call it such, but it's still not a good thing to have at a tech conference.
I would change that to “harassing or exclusionary behavior of any form”.
Moreover, I would add a list. It needn't be a long list, but it must be an explicit list.
A few short comments.
This is kind of dangerous. If someone wants to be hit on, then they would feel comfortable doing so to someone else.
Yes, there should be an explicit list. While this is probably the most controversial point, calling it out will help prevent any incidents. That list will unlikely be able to cover all of the possibilities under the sun, but it can call out the most severe behaviors.
That list of purposes is awesome, and is a good way to judge a policy. Nicely put.