GNOME Code of Conduct committee guidelines for handling incidents

The audience for this document is the GNOME Code of Conduct committee. The goal is to document the necessary steps for handling incidents that have been reported.

Discussing a report

Meetings to discuss reports should be held as soon as possible. If the incident requires an immediate response, the meeting should be held within 24 hours of receiving the report. If the incident is not urgent, the meeting should be scheduled within one week of receiving the report.

Only members of the committee should be present at the meeting. At least half of the committee must be in attendance in order to determine consequences and a behavioral modification plan.

• Evaluate conflicts of interest. Anyone who has a conflict of interest (as defined by the conflicts of interest policy will remove themselves from the discussion. This may mean the discussion needs to happen with a subset of committee members on an email thread, or with a subset of committee members in a private chat room.

• Call a meeting of committee members. Not all committee members may be able to attend the meeting, either because of a conflict of interest, or because of personal reasons. There must be at least half of the committee members who do not have a conflict of interest present in the meeting to make a decision.

• Check for missing information. Flag any significant omission or questions. Decide which committee member will follow up with witnesses or the reporter.

• During the meeting, discuss the reported incident. Use the evaluation techniques described below.

• Propose behavioral modification plan. What behavioral modification plan (if any) should be given to the reported person?

• Propose consequences for reported person. What (if any) actions will the committee need to take in order to ensure the behavior does not happen again? What actions will need to be taken if the reported person does not agree to the behavioral modification plan?

• Vote on behavioral modification plan and consequences for the reported person. Decisions will be made by a simple majority of the committee members in the meeting.

The current status of all reports should be documented. This includes documenting email and verbal conversations as they occur. A designated committee member will document committee meeting notes, the committee's report evaluation, and what behavioral modification plan and consequences are decided on. The committee member who follows up with the reported person will document their response.

Follow up meetings may need to be scheduled to review additional information, decide additional consequences based on the reported person's response, or to review an appeal.

Evaluating a report

Jurisdiction

• Is this a Code of Conduct violation? Is this behavior on our list of inappropriate behavior? Is it borderline inappropriate behavior? Does it violate our community norms?

• Did this occur in a space that is within our Code of Conduct's scope? If the incident occurred outside the community, but a community member's mental health or physical safety may be negatively impacted if no action is taken, the incident may be in scope. Private conversations in community spaces are also in scope.

• Did this incident occur in a private conversation or in a public space? Incidents that all community members can see will have more negative impact.

• Does this behavior negatively impact a marginalized group in our community? Is the reporter a person from a marginalized group in our community? How is the reporter being negatively impacted by the reported person's behavior? Would members of the marginalized group decide to disengage with the community if no action was taken?

• Does this incident involve a community leader? Incidents that aren't handled well can have more negative impact on overall community health.

• Does this incident include sexual harrasment?

• Does this pose a safety risk? Does the behavior put a person's physical safety at risk? Will this incident severely negatively impact someone's mental health?

• Is there a risk of this behavior being repeated? Does the reported person understand why their behavior was inappropriate? Is there an established pattern of behavior from past reports?

Impact vs risk matrix is CC-BY-SA 3.0 Safety First PDX and Otter Tech

Law enforcement

Offences should not be reported on behalf of a victim and situations where law officials might solicit such a report should be avoided. The organization should not unnecessarily expose a victim to a process that exposes them or might cause other unwanted collateral damage (e.g. further harassment, emotional stress, …).

If everyone is presently physically safe, involve law enforcement or security only at a victim's request. (In many cases, reporting harassment to law enforcement is very unpleasant and may result in further harassment.)

Note that there may be cases where the organization is legally obliged to contact law enforcement even if the victim does not want to follow up.

You can provide a list of emergency contacts and say something like "if you want any help reporting this incident, please let us know" and leave it at that.

Potential consequences

What follows are examples of possible responses to an incident report. This list is not inclusive, and the GNOME Code of Conduct committee reserves the right to take any action it deems necessary. Possible responses to an incident include:

• Nothing, if the behavior was determined to not be a Code of Conduct violation
• A verbal or emailed warning
• Requiring that the reported person not send private messages to a community member
• Requiring that the reported person not join specific chat channels
• Requiring that the reported person avoid any interaction with, and physical proximity to, another person for the remainder of the event
• Requiring the reported person not attend evening events
• Refusal of alcoholic beverage purchases at events
• Ending a talk that violates the Code of Conduct early
• Not publishing the video or slides of a talk that violated the Code of Conduct
• Not allowing a speaker who violated the Code of Conduct to give (further) talks at the event now or in the future
• Immediately ending any event volunteer responsibilities and privileges a person holds
• Requiring that a person not volunteer for future events (either indefinitely or for a certain time period)
• Requiring that a person refund any travel grants and similar they received
• Revoking sponsor agreements, refunding sponsorship, and removing sponsor promotion (such as logos or banners)
• Requiring that sponsor attendees immediately leave the event and not return
• Requiring that a person immediately leave the event and not return
• Banning a person from future events (either indefinitely or for a certain time period)
• Removing the reported person from community online chat servers or mailing lists (either indefinitely or for a certain time period)
• Removing the reported person from admin or moderator rights to community infrastructure
• Removing a person from leadership of relevant organizations
• Removing a person from membership of relevant organizations
• Publishing an account of the incident and (optionally) calling for the resignation of a person from their responsibilities

Talking to a reported person

When talking to a person who was reported, discuss the incident in terms of their behavior, its impact, and a behavioral modification plan.

Example:

• Behavior: "When you joined this chat channel, you greeted people by saying, 'hey guys!'"

• Context: "Women are underrepresented in our community. People often assume a woman is not part of our community, and that hurts our women community members. The word 'guys' implies a group of men."

• Impact: "When you used the greeting 'hey guys', women in our community felt invisible and unwelcome."

• Call in: "I need your help ensuring our community is welcoming to everyone."

• Behavioral modification plan: "I need you to not use 'guys' to refer to our community members."

If the reported person wants to apologize, tell them that you will relay their apology, but that they should not contact the reporter. Apologies often center the hurt feelings of the reported person and put the reporter in the awkward position of having to forgive the person. As an incident responder, you can choose to relay the reported person's apology, or you can choose not to if it is not genuine.

Sometimes a reported person does not understand why their behavior was inappropriate, or they will not agree to the behavioral modification plan. If this happens, there may be a risk of the inappropriate behavior repeating. You may need to respond with a more severe consequence than a warning, such as removal from an event or a temporary ban from an online community. Talk with your Code of Conduct committee before hand to determine what response to take if the person does not agree to the behavioral modification plan.

No Forced Apologies

Do not ask for the reported person to make an apology to the reporter, third party witnesses, or other people who were impacted by their behavior. Committee members have no responsibility to enforce friendship or reconciliation. The committee's goal is to stop the inappropriate behavior.

Forcing an apology can cause the impacted person additional distress or trauma. It forces further contact with the reported person, which can cause the impacted person to feel unsafe or impact their mental health. It also creates a social expectation that the impacted person will accept the apology, forgive the reported person, and return their social connection to its previous status.

If the reported person offers to apologize to the impacted people (especially in person), discourage it. Say, "I accept your apology on behalf of (the impacted people)."

If a committee member relays an apology to the impacted people, it should be brief and not require a response. "(The reported person) apologizes and agrees to have no further contact with you" is brief. "(The reported person) is very sorry that their attempts to woo you were not received in the manner that was intended and will try to do better next time, they're really really sorry and hope that you can find it in your heart to forgive them" is emphatically not.

If the reported person recognizes that their behavior was inappropriate, note that in the relayed apology. If the reported person does not recognize their behavior was inappropriate, do not relay the apology, as it is not genuine.

Tell the reported person they are not to further discuss the incident with the impacted people. If the reported person attempts to press an apology on someone who would clearly prefer to avoid them, or attempts to recruit others to relay messages on their behalf, this may constitute continued violation of the Code of Conduct.

Following up with reporters

Reporters should receive an acknowledgment of their report within 24 hours. Follow up on a report should be completed within 1 week.

When a report comes in via email:

• Thank the reporter for sending in an incident report
• Give them a timeline for when the incident will be discussed by the committee

After you have talked to the reported person, follow up with the reporter. You can talk to them in person or send them an email.

If the report was determined to be a Code of Conduct violation, follow up with the reporter to:

• Outline what behavioral modification plan was given to the reported person.
• Make sure to mention if the reported person was told not to contact the reporter.
• Thank them for their report.
• Ask them to make an additional report if any other behavior makes them feel unsafe or unwelcome.

If the report was determined not to be a Code of Conduct violation, follow up with the reporter to:

• Thank them for their report.
• Outline why the report was not a Code of Conduct violation, and/or not in scope for the community's Code of Conduct.
• Give the contact information of a person they can appeal to, should they have concerns about how this report was handled.

If handling the report takes longer than 1 week, then the committee will need to send an update to the reporter:

• If you cannot find the reported person at an event, give the reporter daily updates as you search for the reported person.
• If the committee is waiting on additional information, give the reporter an estimated timeline for when the committee will finish their discussion. Once the discussion deadline has passed, follow up with a new deadline.

The committee should send an email acknowledging emailed reports or reports via web form within 24 hours. Reporters should receive an email back with the committee’s decisions and actions taken within 1 week. If deliberations are taking longer than a week, you should email the reporter letting them know that the report will take more time to handle.

Public Responses

Some incidents require a public response after the incident in order to protect the GNOME community. Reasons that you might decide to communicate an incident or enforcement decision with the community include:

• To be transparent with the community
• To ensure that people correctly understand the Code of Conduct
• To reassure people that you are serious about enforcing a Code of Conduct

Be prepared and willing to distance your community from actions of participants that reflect badly on the GNOME community, and to defend your action or inaction in response.

Try to respond quickly to incidents. A late response looks a lot like no response at all and can harm the GNOME community's reputation. Use a simple general statement about the kind of behavior involved.

For example: "$COMMUNITY does not condone $BEHAVIOR. $BEHAVIOR violates the GNOME Code of Conduct. We take harassment seriously and respond to reports of it quickly and firmly."

If the incident has been dealt with at the event, it may be appropriate to make a short announcement at the next plenary, something like: "$thing happened. This was a violation of our policy. We apologize for this. We have taken $action. This is a good time for all attendees to review our policy at $location. If anyone would like to discuss this further they can $contact_us_somehow."

Employer Reports

Please consult with the GNOME Foundation board and/or GNOME lawyers before making a report to someone's employer. If approved, it may be appropriate to provide a short report of someone's conduct to their employer. This may be appropriate if someone is working in an official employee capacity.

An incident may be reported to an employer if the incident occurred while the reported person was:

Talking about their employer's product Staffing a sponsor booth at a GNOME event Answering questions about their employer in the GNOME online community Attempting to recruit someone to work for the employer Claiming to represent their employer's views Working as paid staff for the GNOME Foundation, whether as event staff, online moderators, or contributors

Attribution

The GNOME Code of Conduct committee guidelines was forked from the Code of Conduct template, which was created by Otter Tech and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License

Additional language and graphics were incorporated and modified from the following resources:

• Impact vs risk assessment is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0 Unported License by Audrey Eschright of Safety First PDX and Otter Tech