Code of Conduct
The Seattle Community Network (SCN) is dedicated to fostering an environment in which everyone can participate in our meetups, installs, online spaces, and any other community event.
We believe that diversity in our community is critical and should be celebrated. We welcome everyone of any race, age, gender, nationality, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, religion, education, and skill level. The SCN community and experience often extends outside those spaces. Members meet in person to collaborate on projects, attend related meetups or conferences together, and communicate on social media. Abusive or unwelcoming behavior between SCN Members still has a profound impact on individuals and on the community when it happens beyond our events and online forums. We will use our discretion when deciding whether to enforce this code of conduct after reports of such behavior happening outside of our spaces, taking into account the impact on the individual Members involved as well as the impact on the community at large.
Types of Behavior
Encouraged Behavior
All participants are expected to: be considerate, respectful, and collaborative. Specifically we expect participants to:
- Demonstrate empathy, kindness, and patience toward other people
- Assume the best intentions from others
- Be respectful of differing opinions, viewpoints, and experiences
- Give and gracefully accept constructive feedback
- Accept responsibility and apologize to those affected by our mistakes, and learn from the experience
- Focus on what is best not just for us as individuals, but for the overall community
Unacceptable Behavior
The following types of behavior are unacceptable at SCN, both online and in-person, and constitute code of conduct violations.
Abusive Behavior
- Harassment
- Offensive verbal comments related to gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, nationality, immigration status, language, religion, or education level
- Sexual images in public spaces, unwelcome sexual or romantic attention, and inappropriate physical contact.
- Threats
- Threating someone physically or verbally.
- For example, threatening to publicize sensitive information about someone’s personal life
- Hacking
- Blatant -isms
- Saying things that are explicitly racist, sexist, homophobic, etc.
- For example, arguing that some people are less intelligent because of their gender, race or religion.
- Subtle -isms and small mistakes made in conversation are not code of conduct violations. However, repeating something after it has been pointed out to you that you made a member feel unwelcome, broke a social rule or antagonizing or arguing with someone who has pointed out your subtle -ism is considered unwelcoming behavior and is not allowed in SCN.
- Maliciousness towards other members
- Deliberately attempting to make others feel bad, name-calling, singling out others for derision or exclusion.
- For example, telling somone they’re not technical enough or that they don’t belong in SCN.
- Being especially unpleasant
- For example, if we’ve received reports from multiple members of annoying, rude, or especially distracting behavior.
- For example, repeatedly engaging in bad faith arguments, talking down to people, or excluding people from participation.
Reporting
Please report code of conduct violations either to the event organizer, by emailing lcl@eattlecommunitynetwork.org or by alerting moderators on Slack with the @moderators group tag.
All of our moderators are volunteers, and will response with their best effort. However, if you provide your name, or contact info we promise to respond within two business days.
How to Report
In your report, please include:
- Subject line
- “[SCN Code of Conduct Violation Report]” followed by descriptive subject
- Your name
- This is incredibly helpful for us to be able to follow up with you, and ask questions to better understand the situation.
- You are welcome to report anonymously. Please only use this option if you really need to, and know that we might not be able to take action without knowing who you are.
- In any case, provide an email address so we can correspond with you about the report.
- A detailed description of what happened
- If the violation happened online, please link to or send us the relevant text.
- If the violation happened in person, please detail exactly what the other person said or did. In order to take action, we need to know the concrete actions that someone took.
- Where and when the incident happened
- Any other relevant context. Do you have examples of a pattern of similar behavior? Do you have a relationship with this person outside of SCN?
- If/how you’ve already responded - this lets us know the current state of the situation.
Why to Report
- You are responsible for making SCN a safe and comfortable space for everyone. Everyone in our community shares this responsibility. Our volunteer Moderators are not around all the time, so we cannot enforce the code of conduct without your help.
- The consequences for SCN of not reporting bad behavior outweigh the consequences for one person reporting it. We sometimes hear “I don’t want X person to meet consequences because I told someone about their bad behavior.” Consider the impact on everyone else at SCN of letting their behavior continue unchecked.
- SCN only works as a self-directed, community-driven effort because of shared trust between members. Reporting code of conduct violations helps us identify when this trust is broken, to prevent that from happening in the future.
Enforcement Guidelines
Moderators will follow these Community Impact Guidelines in determining the consequences for any action they deem in violation of this Code of Conduct.
Correction
Community Impact: Unwelcoming behavior. Use of inappropriate language or other behavior deemed unprofessional or unwelcome in the community.
Consequence: A private, written warning from moderators, providing clarity around the nature of the violation and an explanation of why the behavior was inappropriate. A public or private apology may be requested in the venue where the behavior took place, for example on Slack or at the event.
Warning
Community Impact: A violation through a single incident of abusive behavior or series of unwelcoming behaviors.
Consequence: A warning with consequences for continued behavior. No interaction with the people involved, including unsolicited interaction with those enforcing the Code of Conduct, for a specified period of time. This includes avoiding interactions in community spaces as well as external channels like social media. Violating these terms may lead to a temporary or permanent ban.
Temporary Ban
Community Impact: A serious violation of community standards, including sustained unwelcoming behavior.
Consequence: A temporary ban from any sort of participation, interaction, or public communication with the community for a specified period of time. No public or private interaction with the people involved, including unsolicited interaction with those enforcing the Code of Conduct, is allowed during this period. Violating these terms may lead to a permanent ban.
Permanent Ban
Community Impact: Demonstrating a pattern of violation of community standards, including sustained unwelcoming behavior, harassment or threatening of an individual, or aggression toward or disparagement of classes of individuals.
Consequence: A permanent ban from any sort of participation, or public interaction within the community.
Discussion
If you have questions about any aspect of the code of conduct, or want to propose amending it, please contact the @moderators group, or drop in to the public #governance channel on Slack.
Attribution
Taken almost verbatim from the NYC Mesh Code of Conduct.
NYC Mesh CoC Attribution:
Most of this is from the Recurse Center CoC. Other parts are from Strange Loop(community goals), Contributor Covenant (portion of the community goals, encouraged behaviors, enforcement guidelines), and the Toronto Mesh/Geek Feminism (guidelines for moderators).