Code of Conduct

Our Code of Conduct is our commitment to the community to provide a welcoming, safe(r) space for all its participants. All speakers, sponsors, and volunteers at StarCon are required to agree with the following code of conduct. Organizers will enforce this code throughout the event and social media spaces.

StarCon is dedicated to providing an oppression-free conference experience for everyone, regardless of level of experience, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, personal appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, age, religion (or lack thereof), nationality, or technology choices. We define oppression as any language or action that expresses, reinforces, upholds or sympathizes with any form of systemic social domination.

Please note that our photography policy, no alcohol policy, and no weapons policy are all expected to be followed and breaking these policies are also code of conduct violations.

Expected Behaviour

The following behaviors are expected and requested of all community members:

  • Participate in an authentic and active way. In doing so, you contribute to the health and longevity of this community.
  • Exercise consideration and respect in your speech and actions.
  • Attempt collaboration before conflict.
  • Refrain from demeaning, discriminatory, or harassing behavior and speech.
  • Be mindful of your surroundings and of your fellow participants. Alert community leaders if you notice a dangerous situation, someone in distress, or violations of this Code of Conduct, even if they seem inconsequential.
  • Remember that community event venues may be shared with members of the public; please be respectful to all patrons of these locations.

Unacceptable Behavior

We do not tolerate harassment of conference participants, speakers, or sponsors in any form. Sexual language and imagery is not appropriate for any conference venue, including talks, workshops, parties, and social media.

Unacceptable behaviors include: intimidating, harassing, abusive, discriminatory, derogatory or demeaning speech or actions by any participant in our community online, at all related events, and in one-on-one communications carried out in the context of community business. Community event venues may be shared; please be respectful to all patrons of these locations.

Harassment includes: harmful or prejudicial verbal or written comments related to gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, disability; inappropriate use of nudity and/or sexual images in public spaces (including presentation slides); deliberate intimidation, stalking or following; harassing photography or recording; sustained disruption of talks or other events; inappropriate physical contact, and unwelcome sexual attention.

The most common form of Code of Conduct incident is often microaggressions, which are statements that reinforce the status quo, and may make minorities in tech feel uncomfortable, alone, or unsupported. Even a small microaggression is still a Code of Conduct violation and we welcome reports of them.

Consequences of Unacceptable Behavior

Unacceptable behavior from any community member, including sponsors, and those with decision-making authority, will not be tolerated.

Anyone asked to stop unacceptable behavior is expected to comply immediately.

If a community member engages in unacceptable behavior, the community organizers may take any action they deem appropriate, up to and including a temporary ban or permanent expulsion from the conference without warning (and without refund in the case of a paid event).

Experiencing Unacceptable Behavior

If you are subject to or witness unacceptable behavior, or have any other concerns, please contact us, with a description of the incident, when and where it happened, and any other details you feel comfortable disclosing.

Additionally, community organizers are available to help community members engage with local law enforcement or to otherwise help those experiencing unacceptable behavior feel safe. In the context of in-person events, organizers will also provide escorts as desired by the person experiencing distress.

Scope

We expect all community participants (participants, organizers, sponsors, and other guests) to abide by this Code of Conduct in all community venues—online and in-person—as well as in all one-on-one communications pertaining to community business.

Contact Us

Note that Evy Kassirer and Arshia Mufti are StarCon’s official incident responders, and Evy has participated in a Code of Conduct enforcement training with Sage Sharp. You are welcome to reach out to them or to any other conference organizers or volunteers.

You have several options for contacting us:

  • Send a private Slack message to any conference organizer
  • Direct message Evy on Twitter
  • Message Evy or Arshia securely on Keybase
  • Find a conference organizer (wearing navy blue StarCon shirts) or volunteer (wearing dark grey StarCon shirts) and talk to us in person
  • Send an email to the conference organizers with the anonymous form below

We won’t share your contact information or the contents of your message with anyone other than trained incident responders (if you email us, only the 6 conference executives will see the email).

Processing Code of Conduct reports

When you report a Code of Conduct violation, the following will happen:

  • Only the people you talk to and the incident responders (Evy and Arshia) will recieve information about the incident.
  • We will ask what you would like to be done in response to the incident and will evaluate if we will follow through with that.
  • Usually we will not respond in any way more than the reporter wishes (we are often happy to simply record an incident and not respond if that is what the reporter wishes). However, if we believe the incident is especially harmful (e.g. people’s lives are in danger) or has done harm to a lot of people (e.g. something in a talk that affected all attendees) we may choose to remove a person from the event or address the issue to our attendees more publicly.
  • The timeframe in which we respond to reports will vary incident to incident and we’ll respond in the timeframe we believe necessary. However, we commit to responding to all incidents within two weeks of the conference.
  • Incident details including date, time, and location will be recorded in a document in a Google Drive folder with link sharing turned off. Only Evy and Arshia will have access to this document - but we may add extra people if the issue feels serious and urgent, or if the reporter of the incident would like more organizers to be involved.

Addressing Grievances

If you feel you have been falsely or unfairly accused of violating this Code of Conduct, contact us with a description of your grievance.

License Information and Attribution

This Code of Conduct is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license, derived from the Open Source Bridge Code of Conduct, the JSConf Code of Conduct, and the Citizen Code of Conduct.

Version 2.0, adopted by StarCon on Jan 1, 2018.

Version history here