Code of Conduct

The Festival of Maintenance is a community conference intended as a learning and networking event, and a celebration of those who maintain different parts of our world, and how they do it, recognising the often hidden work done in repair, custodianship, stewardship, tending and caring for the things that matter.

We value the participation of each member of the our community and want all attendees to have an enjoyable and fulfilling experience. Accordingly, all attendees are expected to show respect and courtesy to other attendees throughout the event.

To make clear what is expected, all organisers, attendees, and speakers, at this event are required to conform to the following Code of Conduct. Organisers will enforce this code throughout the event.

Our standards

The Festival of Maintenance is dedicated to providing a positive conference 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 socio-economic status.

Examples of behavior that contributes to creating a positive environment include:

  • Being kind to others
  • Behaving professionally
  • Using welcoming and inclusive language
  • Being respectful of differing viewpoints and experiences
  • Gracefully accepting constructive criticism
  • Focusing on what is best for the community
  • Showing empathy towards other community members

Examples of unacceptable behavior by participants include:

  • Harassment of conference participants in any form
  • Deliberate intimidation, stalking, or following
  • Violent threats or language directed against another person
  • Sexual language and imagery in any conference venue, including talks
  • Insults or put downs
  • Sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, or exclusionary jokes
  • Excessive swearing
  • Unwelcome sexual attention or advances
  • Unwelcome physical contact
  • Sustained disruption of talks or other events
  • Other conduct that is inappropriate for a professional audience including people of many different backgrounds

In our commitment to a harassment-free and inclusive environment we strongly believe it’s important to pay attention to harmful language patterns:

  • Using gendered terms like “dude” or “guys” to address a mixed-gendered group of people contributes to furthering exclusion of underrepresented individuals. We strongly advise avoiding gendered pronouns for generic examples too.
  • Words like “crazy”, “dumb”, “insane” or “lame” are examples of ableist language, devaluating people who have physical or mental disabilities. Its appearance often stems not from any intentional desire to offend, but from our innate sense of what it means to be normal. These words can be avoided by using more fitting, clearer descriptions of what we want to communicate.

Participants asked to stop any inappropriate behaviour are expected to comply immediately.

Thank you for helping make this a welcoming, friendly event for all.

Contact information

If you believe that someone is violating the code of conduct during the event, or have any other concerns, please contact one of the organisers immediately.

Procedure for handling incidents

Participants asked to stop any harassing behaviour are expected to comply immediately.

If a participant engages in harassing behaviour, event organisers retain the right to take any actions to keep the event a welcoming environment for all participants. This includes warning the offender or expulsion from the conference with no refund.

Event organisers may take action to address anything designed to, or with the clear impact of, disrupting the event or making the environment hostile for any participants. We expect participants to follow these rules at all event venues and event-related social activities. We think people should follow these rules outside event activities too!

When taking a personal report, our organisers will ensure you are safe and cannot be overheard. They may involve other organisers or venue staff to ensure your report is managed properly. Once safe, we’ll ask you to tell us about what happened. This can be upsetting, but we’ll handle it as respectfully as possible, and you can bring someone to support you. You won’t be asked to confront anyone and we won’t tell anyone who you are.

Our team will be happy to help you contact venue security, local law enforcement, local support services, provide escorts, or otherwise assist you to feel safe for the duration of the event. We value your attendance.

License

This Code of Conduct was forked from the PyCon Code of Conduct plus some sections from JS Conf EU’s Code of Conduct.

The PyCon Code of Conduct  was itself forked from the example policy from the Geek Feminism wiki, created by the Ada Initiative and other volunteers, which is under a Creative Commons Zero license.

Additional language was added by Otter Tech from:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License