Code of Conduct

The Geek.Zone community is made up of members from around the globe with a diverse set of skills, personalities, and experiences. It is through these differences that our community experiences great successes and continued growth. When you’re working with members of the community, this Code of Conduct will help steer your interactions and keep Geek.Zone a positive, successful, and growing community. This Code of Conduct supplements the Constitution.

Our Community

Members of the Geek.Zone community are open, considerate, and respectful. Behaviours that reinforce these values contribute to a positive environment, and include:

  • Being open.
  • Members of the community are open to collaboration in all things.
  • Focusing on what is best for the community.
  • We’re respectful of the processes set forth in the community, and we work within them.
  • Acknowledging time and effort.
  • We’re respectful of the volunteer efforts that permeate the Geek.Zone community. We’re thoughtful when addressing the efforts of others, keeping in mind that the labour was often completed simply for the good of the community.
  • Being respectful of differing viewpoints and experiences.
  • We’re receptive to constructive comments and criticism, as the experiences and skill sets of other members contribute to the whole of our efforts.
  • Showing empathy towards other community members.
  • We’re attentive in our communications, whether in person or online, and we’re tactful when approaching differing views.
  • Being considerate.
  • Members of the community are considerate of their peers — other Geek.Zone members.
  • Being respectful.
  • We’re respectful of others, their positions, their skills, their commitments, and their efforts.
  • Gracefully accepting constructive criticism.
  • When we disagree, we are courteous in raising our issues.
  • Using welcoming and inclusive language.
  • We’re accepting of all who wish to take part in our activities, fostering an environment where anyone can participate and everyone can make a difference.

Our Standards

Every member of our community has the right to have their identity respected. The Geek.Zone community is dedicated to providing a positive experience for everyone, regardless of age, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, ethnicity, nationality, race, or religion (or lack thereof), education, or socioeconomic status.

Inappropriate Behaviour

Examples of unacceptable behaviour by participants include:

  • Harassment of any participants in any form
  • Deliberate intimidation, stalking, or following
  • Logging or taking screenshots of online activity for harassment purposes
  • Publishing others’ private information, such as a physical or electronic address, without explicit permission
  • Violent threats or language directed against another person
  • Incitement of violence or harassment towards any individual, including encouraging a person to commit suicide or to engage in self-harm
  • Creating additional online accounts in order to harass another person or circumvent a ban
  • Sexual language and imagery in online communities or in any conference venue, including talks
  • Insults, put-downs, or jokes that are based upon stereotypes, that are exclusionary, or that hold others up for ridicule
  • Excessive use of offensive language, including but not limited to swear words.
    Offensive language is that which is included in the 2021 Ofcom report, Public attitudes towards offensive language on TV and radio.
  • Unwelcome sexual attention or advances
  • Unwelcome physical contact, including simulated physical contact (eg, textual descriptions like “hug” or “backrub”) without consent or after a request to stop
  • A pattern of inappropriate social contact, such as requesting/assuming inappropriate levels of intimacy with others
  • Sustained disruption of online community discussions, in-person presentations, or other in-person events
  • Continued one-on-one communication after requests to cease
  • Other conduct that is inappropriate for a professional audience including people of many different backgrounds

Community members asked to stop any inappropriate behaviour are expected to comply immediately.

Weapons Policy

No weapons are allowed at Geek.Zone events. Weapons include but are not limited to explosives (including fireworks), guns, and knives such as those used for hunting or display, as well as any other item used for the purpose of causing injury or harm to others. Anyone seen in possession of one of these items will be asked to leave immediately, and will only be allowed to return without the weapon.

Consequences

If a member engages in behaviour that violates this code of conduct, the Geek.Zone/Trustees may take any action they deem appropriate as set out under the Geek.Zone/Constitution, including but not limited to warning the offender or expulsion from the community and community events with no refund of event tickets.

Thank you for helping make this a welcoming, friendly community for everyone.

Scope

Geek.Zone Events

This Code of Conduct applies to the following people at events hosted by Geek.Zone, and events hosted by projects under our fiscal sponsorship:

  • Staff
  • Geek.Zone/Trustee board members
  • speakers
  • panellists
  • tutorial or workshop leaders
  • poster presenters
  • people invited to meetings or summits
  • exhibitors
  • organizers
  • volunteers
  • all attendees

The Code of Conduct applies in official venue event spaces, including:

  • exhibit hall or vendor tabling area
  • panel and presentation rooms
  • hackathon or sprint rooms
  • tutorial or workshop rooms
  • poster session rooms
  • summit or meeting rooms
  • staff areas
  • con suite
  • meal areas
  • party suites
  • walkways, hallways, elevators, and stairs that connect any of the above spaces

The Code of Conduct applies to interactions with official event accounts on social media spaces and phone applications, including:

  • comments made on official conference phone apps
  • comments made on event video hosting services
  • comments made on the official event hashtag or panel hashtags

Event organizers will enforce this code throughout the event. Event organisers can contact the Geek.Zone/Trustees for advice and support at [email protected].

Geek.Zone Online Spaces

This Code of Conduct applies to all Geek.Zone online spaces, including but not limited to:

  • Geek.Zone Discord server
  • Code repositories, issue trackers, and pull requests made against any Geek.Zone controlled GitHub organization
  • Geek.Zone Jira & Confluence spaces
  • Any other online space administered by Geek.Zone

Spaces (both online and physical) that are not administered by Geek.Zone, including but not limited to personal direct messages, are technically out-of-scope. Nonetheless, any reports of Geek.Zone members or participants exhibiting inappropriate behaviour will still be taken seriously by the Geek.Zone/Trustees. For example, if you meet someone at Geek.Zone and then they start sending you inappropriate messages, the Geek.Zone/Trustees will do everything they can to help protect you, such as reminding the individual about the spirit of this Code of Conduct; see the ”Summary” below.

This Code of Conduct applies to the following people in official Geek.Zone online spaces:

  • admins of the online space
  • maintainers
  • reviewers
  • contributors
  • all community members

Each online space listed above is required to provide the following information to the Geek.Zone/Trustees:

  • contact information for any administrators/moderators

Each online space listed above is encouraged to provide the following information to community members:

  • a welcome message with a link to this Code of Conduct and the contact information for making an incident report [email protected]

The Geek.Zone/Trustees will receive and evaluate incident reports from the online communities listed above. Geek.Zone/Trustees will work with online community administrators/moderators to suggest actions to take in response to a report. In cases where the administrators/moderators disagree on the suggested resolution for a report, the Geek.Zone/Chair may take a final, deciding vote.

Summary

In the immortal words of Bill & Ted, all Geek.Zone members and participants should “be excellent to each other“.

Contact Information

If you believe that someone is violating the code of conduct, or have any other concerns, please contact The Geek.Zone/Trustees at [email protected]

Procedure for Handling Incidents

If there is immediate danger, get help.

For all other situations, please contact [email protected]

License

This Code of Conduct was originally written by The Python Software Foundation, who licensed it under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. The original is available at

https://www.python.org/psf/conduct/

We, therefore, licence this Code of Conduct under the same licence. We would like to thank the PSF for being awesome.

Changes

We changed the original PSF document with minor alterations to make it apply to the Geek.Zone community, though the principles of the original document remain the same.