** Note: This now lives at https://github.com/musichackday/MHD-Conduct. Please post new comments / submit pull requests there instead of here **
This is a first draft of a Code of Conduct for Music Hack Day events, based on similar codes of conduct, such as the PyCon Code of Conduct and its upstream template from the Geek Feminism wiki and the Ada Initiative.
Because this is a draft, your comments, criticisms, and feedback are appreciated. We would like Music Hack Day to be deliberately and specifically open and welcoming to everyone, and navigating the tech-meets-pop-culture in both an inclusive and an artistically-friendly way is challenging.
As this is, in its first draft, I am having a particularly hard time figuring out how to write the last paragraph of the "in depth" section in a way that both curbs potential harrassment, and also does not prevent someone from building something like an automatic-playlist-generator based on user input. Feedback on that paragraph in particular would be greatly appreciated.
Music Hack Day is dedicated to a harassment-free hackathon experience for everyone. Our anti-harassment policy can be found at: http://conduct.musichackday.org/
Music Hack Day organizers are dedicated to providing a harassment-free hackathon experience for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, or religion. We do not tolerate harassment of hackathon attendees in any form.
Music Hack Day is an event about having fun, building cool stuff, and meeting new people. Though it is more informal than a professional environment, attendees are expected to behave responsibly and courteously. Be kind to one another.
Hackathon attendees violating these rules may be sanctioned or expelled from the hackathon at the discretion of the conference organizers.
Harrassment includes offensive verbal comments, sexual images in public spaces, deliberate intimidation, stalking, following, harrasing photography or recording, sustained disruption of talks or presentations, inappropriate physical contact, and unwelcome sexual attention.
In the context of this document, an attendee is anyone present at the event. This includes sponsors, technology presenters, hackers, and the audience for the hack demoes at the end of the weekend.
All attendees are subject to the anti-harrassment policy. In particular, sponsors and presenters should not use sexualized images, activities, or other material. If booths and booth staff are present, booth staff (including volunteers) should not use sexualized clothing, uniforms, or costumes, or otherwise create a sexualized environment.
Attendees asked to stop any harrassing behavior are expected to comply immediately.
Attendees violating these rules may be sanctioned or expelled from the hackathon at the discretion of the event's organizers.
As a music tech event and a hackathon, we recognize that our circumstances are slightly different than the average tech conference for which the original code of conduct was designed. Music and related aspects of pop culture are often highly sexualized, both lyrically and aesthetically. As such, it is possible that an otherwise inoffensive hack may become offensive by selecting or involving explicit or offensive music, lyrical content, or album covers. Hacks of this type should be identified as such at the beginning of their demo, and presenters should provide people in the audience an opportunity to step out if they feel like they might be offended by the hack. Presenters should also make an effort to ensure that the content used in their demo is not offensive.
One more thought is that as Code of Conduct this one is very heavy on the harassment language, making it read more like an anti-harassment policy than a Code of Conduct. You noted that you wanted more language in here that takes a positive approach, which I think will really help create a COC.
There is a lot of good stuff in here about harassment and hostile public spaces. Depending on what you are going for, it may either belong in a section about harassment or would benefit from refinement by word choice. Harassment is targeted at individuals, unwanted, and repetitive, and in my experience unusual bad behavior at a hackathon. Instead, behavior and environmental characteristics that make people uncomfortable and prohibited from being their best is more common and more subtle. You might be able to replace some of the language about "harassment" with language about "discrimination" and calling out "sexualized content and environments" directly as inappropriate (since they aren't really harassment).