Acetarium/anti-harassment-policy
I believe this is a suggestion/workspace to discuss the formation of an anti-harassment policy/CoC for #acetarium, social@acetarium, and the Acetarium. -mdb
Short version
Acetarium is dedicated to providing a harassment-free 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 participants in any form.
This code of conduct applies to all Acetarium spaces, including our mailing lists and IRC channel (and exclusing 265 Elm St, Apt 4), both online and off. Anyone who violates this code of conduct may be sanctioned or expelled from these spaces at the discretion of the RESPONSE TEAM.
Some Acetarium spaces may have additional rules in place, which will be made clearly available to participants. Participants are responsible for knowing and abiding by these rules.
Long version
Acetarium is dedicated to providing a harassment-free experience for everyone. We do not tolerate harassment in any form.
This code of conduct applies to all Acetarium spaces, including our mailing lists and IRC channel, both online and off. Anyone who violates this code of conduct may be sanctioned or expelled from these spaces at the discretion of the RESPONSE TEAM.
Some Acetarium spaces may have additional rules in place, which will be made clearly available to participants. Participants are responsible for knowing and abiding by these rules.
Harassment includes:
- Offensive comments related to gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, mental illness, neuro(a)typicality, physical appearance, body size, race, or religion
- Unwelcome comments regarding a person’s lifestyle choices and practices, including those related to food, health, parenting, drugs, and employment.
- Deliberate misgendering or use of ‘dead’ or rejected names
- Gratuitous or off-topic sexual images or behaviour ∝in spaces where they’re not appropriate
- Physical contact and simulated physical contact (eg, textual descriptions like “*hug*” or “*backrub*”) without consent or after a request to stop.
- Threats of violence
- Incitement of violence towards any individual, including encouraging a person to commit suicide or to engage in self-harm
- Deliberate intimidation
- Stalking or following
- Harassing photography or recording, including logging online activity for harassment purposes
- Sustained disruption of discussion
- Unwelcome sexual attention
- Pattern of inappropriate social contact, such as requesting/assuming inappropriate levels of intimacy with others
- Continued one-on-one communication after requests to cease
- Deliberate “outing” of any aspect of a person’s identity without their consent except as necessary to protect vulnerable people from intentional abuse
- Publication of non-harassing private communication
Acetarium prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort. RESPONSE GROUP will not act on complaints regarding:
- ‘Reverse’ -isms, including ‘reverse racism,’ ‘reverse sexism,’ and ‘cisphobia’
- Reasonable communication of boundaries, such as “leave me alone,” “go away,” or “I’m not discussing this with you.”
- Communicating in a ‘tone’ you don’t find congenial
- Criticizing racist, sexist, cissexist, or otherwise oppressive behavior or assumptions
Reporting
If you are being harassed by a member of Acetarium, notice that someone else is being harassed, or have any other concerns, please contact the RESPONSE GROUP at [email address or other contact point]. If the person who is harassing you is on the team, they will recuse themselves from handling your incident. We will respond as promptly as we can. This code of conduct applies to Acetarium spaces, but if you are being harassed by a member of Acetarium outside our spaces, we still want to know about it. We will take all good-faith reports of harassment by Acetarium members, especially LEADERSHIP TEAM, seriously. This includes harassment outside our spaces and harassment that took place at any point in time. The abuse team reserves the right to exclude people from Acetarium based on their past behavior, including behavior outside Acetarium spaces and behavior towards people who are not in Acetarium. In order to protect volunteers from abuse and burnout, we reserve the right to reject any report we believe to have been made in bad faith. Reports intended to silence legitimate criticism may be deleted without response. We will respect confidentiality requests for the purpose of protecting victims of abuse. At our discretion, we may publicly name a person about whom we’ve received harassment complaints, or privately warn third parties about them, if we believe that doing so will increase the safety of Acetarium members or the general public. We will not name harassment victims without their affirmative consent.
Consequences
Participants asked to stop any harassing behavior are expected to comply immediately.
If a participant engages in harassing behavior, RESPONSE TEAM may take any action they deem appropriate, up to and including expulsion from all Acetarium spaces and identification of the participant as a harasser to other Acetarium members or the general public.
This anti-harassment policy is based on the example policy from the Geek Feminism wiki, created by the Geek Feminism community.
The policy is based on the conference anti-harassment policy, and is the work of Annalee Flower Horne with assistance from Valerie Aurora, Alex Skud Bayley, Tim Chevalier, and Mary Gardiner.
Suggested Replacement
I have an extended set of problems with the above policy, but rather than making piecewise edits, I'm proposing the following as a complete replacement, modeled after the DebConf Code of Conduct. ~hlieberman
The Acetarium and its online presences welcomes and encourages participation by everyone.
No matter how you identify yourself or how others perceive you: we welcome you. We welcome contributions from everyone as long as they interact constructively with our community.
The Acetarium is committed to providing a safe environment for all. All people at the Acetarium or in its presences are expected to treat all people and facilities with respect and help create a welcoming environment. If you notice behavior that fails to meet this standard, please speak up and help to keep the Acetarium as respectful as we expect it to be. We ask all our members, guests, and visitors to adopt these and respect this environment.
Respect yourself, and respect others. Be courteous to those around you. If someone indicates they don't wish to be photographed, respect that wish. If someone indicates they would like to be left alone, let them be. Our venues and online spaces may be shared with members of the public; please be considerate to all patrons of these locations, even if they are not involved in the Acetarium.
We ask everyone to be aware that we will not tolerate intimidation, harassment, or any abusive, discriminatory or derogatory behavior by anyone at the Acetarium, at its events, or in related online presences. If you become aware of any problems, please contact ${RESPONSE TEAM}. All complaints will remain confidential and be taken seriously; we promise to treat complaints appropriately and with discretion. Should the response team consider it appropriate, measures they can take include, but are not limited to:
- the individuals may be told to apologize
- the individuals may be told to stop/modify their behavior appropriately
- the individuals may be warned that enforcement action may be taken if the behavior continues
- the individuals may be asked to immediately leave the venue and/or will be prohibited from continuing to attend any part of the event or future events
- the incident may be reported to the appropriate authorities
Everyone, including members and guests, must not engage in any intimidation, harassment, or abusive or discriminatory behavior. If you are not sure whether or not something you are doing qualifies, refrain from it and ask ${RESPONSE TEAM} for clarification. When in doubt, err on the side of caution; we are all human.
