code of conduct

Everybody who participates in DjangoCon Europe in some way must conform to this Code of Conduct (CoC)—attendees, speakers, sponsors, organizers, volunteers, and event staff.

The organizers will introduce a Code of Conduct team that will be primarily responsible for handling any incidents. The CoC applies before and throughout the event (including related activities such as social events and social media). We have also published our response guidelines.

The team can be reached at conduct@djangocon.eu.

We thank the DjangoCon Europe 2019 CoC team for the awesome CoC (which we adapted with minor modifications) and the response guidelines (which we have adopted almost unedited from 2018).

Why do we have a Code of Conduct?

Our goals with having this Code of Conduct are:

• Helping everyone feel safe and included. Attendees may have had poor experiences at other events or may have been first-timers. We want to set the expectation that harassment and other unpleasant behavior are unacceptable. This way, people with an unpleasant experience know that it is neither the norm nor acceptable to us as a community.
• Helping to build trust that if an incident is reported, we will not respond with victim blaming and will proceed with a thorough investigation. This will be true even if the incident involves someone in a position of power, for example.
• Informing everyone of the expected behavior. We are a diverse community, and having a Code of Conduct makes the expectations of everybody's behavior explicit and transparent.
• Having a framework for report handling (see the response guidelines). The Code of Conduct is the basis for dealing with a report, assessing whether the CoC was violated, and what action should be taken.

Our Code of Conduct

We ask each attendant to keep the community in mind and do their best to foster a positive environment.

Behavior that contributes to a positive environment includes:

• Being kind and considerate to others
• Behaving professionally
• Using welcoming and inclusive language
• Being respectful of differing viewpoints and experiences
• Gracefully accepting constructive criticism
• Being supportive towards newcomers

We are dedicated to providing a harassment-free conference experience for everyone, regardless of race, ethnicity, culture, national origin, color, immigration status, social and economic class, educational level, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, age, size, family status, political belief, religion, and mental and physical ability.

We do not tolerate harassment of conference participants in any form. This includes offensive comments related to the categories above, deliberate intimidation, stalking, following, or harassing photography or recording, sustained disruption of talks or other events, violent threats or language, inappropriate physical contact, and unwelcome sexual attention. Advocating for or encouraging any of the above behavior is also not acceptable.
- Sexual language and imagery are not appropriate for any venue to which the CoC applies.
Some people may not wish to be filmed or photographed. Respect their wishes, take extra care when publishing pictures, and provide a way to request that they be taken down.
- Be careful in the words that you choose. Remember that sexist, racist, and other exclusionary jokes can be offensive and unwelcoming to those around you. Excessive swearing and offensive jokes are not appropriate for DjangoCon Europe.
- Condescending behavior towards people of different knowledge levels, especially beginners, is unacceptable.
- No one owes anyone any form of interaction or explanation for why they don't want contact. If someone asks you to leave them alone, accept and respect it without further discussion, even if you think it is unwarranted.

Where does the Code of Conduct apply?

This Code of Conduct applies to all conference-related spaces. That includes, but is not limited to:

• The conference's online platform
• Any conference-related social activities
• Slack channels, tweets with the conference hashtag, and other online media
• The Code of Conduct does not exclusively apply to events on the conference agenda. For example, if after a scheduled social event, you go to a bar with a group of fellow participants and someone harasses you there, we would still treat that as a CoC violation.

What can happen if the CoC is violated?

In case of a Code of Conduct violation, some of the most common actions organizers may take are:

• Demanding that a participant stop their behavior.
• Demanding that a participant prevents further contact with other participants.
• Not publishing the video of a conference talk.
• Cancelling a conference talk.
• Removing a participant from the conference without a refund.
• The action taken is at the discretion of the Code of Conduct team. Just so you know, participants are expected to comply immediately, and further action may be taken if a participant does not comply. A record of all incidents will be kept.

Where to report incidents

If a Code of Conduct incident happens to you, or you witness it happening to someone else, please get in touch with the CoC team immediately, either in Slack or by sending an email to conduct@djangocon.eu.

Your report will be treated confidentially and only be discussed with the CoC team.

The team members will be introduced at the conference. Feel free to message any of them anytime to discuss an incident or concern. You can also ask any other staff member to help you find them.

Guidelines for reporting incidents

Please do not feel like you may be a burden to us by reporting incidents, even if you happen to report multiple incidents during the conference. We consider reports an opportunity for us to act: by knowing about an incident, we can act on it and often prevent it from happening again. But if we don't know, we can't take action.

If you need clarification on whether someone else has already reported an incident, even if many people saw it, please report it. Frequently, several people witness an incident, and no one reports it because everyone thought other people would.

If you are still determining whether the situation was a Code of Conduct violation or whether it applied to that particular space, we encourage you to report it. We would much rather have a few extra reports where we decide to take no action than miss a report of an actual violation. Unfortunately, we don't look negatively on you if we find the incident is not a violation. Knowing about incidents that are not violations or happen outside our spaces can also help us to improve the Code of Conduct or the processes surrounding it.

If you think you witnessed something but are unsure what you saw or don't have proof, it's still very useful to us if you can report on it. You don't have to build up a case before reporting, and it's okay to report things even if you have doubts.

In your report, please include, when possible:

• Your contact info (so we can get in touch with you)
• Names (real, nicknames, or pseudonyms) of individuals involved. If there were other witnesses besides you, please also try to include them.
• When and where the incident occurred. Please be as specific as possible.
• Your account of what occurred. If there is a written record (e.g., tweets or Slack messages), please include screenshots and, if possible, a link.
• Any extra context relevant to the incident.
• If this incident is ongoing.
• Do you have any other information you would like to give us?

If you don't have some of this information or not at this time, please still make the report anyway. You can contact us at any time after your report if you want to add, edit, or take back any information you shared.

If you feel unsafe reporting in person, you may choose someone to represent you. In this case, we'd need their contact information, but we'd ask this person to make it clear that they are not reporting in their own name.

When handling a report, we follow our response guidelines.

We value your attendance and look forward to seeing you at DjangoCon Europe.