GCC Code of Conduct Response Guide

NOTE: The Code of Conduct Committee, and the formal reporting and response procedures, are not yet fully established. The below are the currently planned procedures for when the committee is in place.

This is the process followed by the GCC Code of Conduct Committee. It's used when we respond to an issue to make sure we're consistent and fair. It should be considered an internal document, but we're publishing it publicly in the interests of transparency.

The Code of Conduct Committee

All responses to reports of conduct violations will be managed by a Code of Conduct Committee ("the committee").

The Steering Committee ("SC") will establish this committee, composed of at least three members. One member will be designated chair of the committee and will be responsible for all reports back to the SC. The SC will review membership on a regular basis.

How the committee will respond to reports

When a report is sent to the committee they will immediately reply to the report to confirm receipt. This reply should be sent within 24 hours, and ideally much sooner than that.

See the reporting guidelines for details of what reports should contain. In addition to the report, the committee will collect all relevant data before acting. The committee will contact all individuals involved, and refer to any available records, to get a more complete account of events.

The committee will then review the incident and determine, to the best of their ability:

• what happened
• whether this event constitutes a code of conduct violation
• who, if anyone, violated the code of conduct
• whether this is an ongoing situation, and there is a threat to anyone's physical safety

This information will be collected in writing, and whenever possible the committee's deliberations will be recorded and privately retained (i.e. IRC transcripts, email discussions, recorded voice conversations, etc).

The committee should aim to have a resolution agreed upon within one week. In the event that a resolution can't be determined in that time, the committee will respond to the reporter(s) with an update and projected timeline for resolution.

Acting Unilaterally

If the act is ongoing (such as someone engaging in harassment in #gcc), or involves a threat to anyone's safety (e.g. threats of violence), any committee member may act immediately (before reaching consensus) to end the situation. In ongoing situations, any member may at their discretion employ any of the tools available to the committee, including bans and blocks.

If the incident involves physical danger, any member of the committee may -- and should -- act unilaterally to protect safety. This can include contacting law enforcement (or other local personnel) and speaking on behalf of the project.

In situations where an individual committee member acts unilaterally, they must report their actions to the committee for review within 24 hours.

Resolutions

The committee must agree on a resolution by consensus. If the committee cannot reach consensus and deadlocks for over a week, the committee will turn the matter over to the Steering Committee for resolution.

Possible responses may include:

• Taking no further action (if we determine no violation occurred).
• Offering to mediate between the individual(s) involved.
• A private request or reprimand from the committee to one or more individual(s) involved. In this case, a committee member will deliver that message to the individual(s) over email, cc'ing the committee.
• A public request or reprimand. In this case, a committee member will deliver that message in the same venue that the violation occurred (i.e. in IRC for an IRC violation; email for an email violation, etc.). The committee may choose to publish this message elsewhere for posterity.
• An imposed vacation (e.g. asking someone to "take a week off" from a mailing list or IRC). A committee member will communicate this "vacation" to the individual(s). They'll be asked to take this vacation voluntarily, but if they don't agree then a temporary ban may be imposed to enforce this vacation.
• A permanent or temporary ban from some or all project spaces (mailing lists, IRC, etc.). The committee will maintain records of all such bans so that they may be reviewed in the future, extended to new project spaces, or otherwise maintained.
• The committee may, if it chooses, attach "strings" to a request: for example, the committee may ask a violator to apologize in order to retain his or her membership on a mailing list.

Once a resolution is agreed upon, but before it is enacted, the committee will contact the original reporter and any other affected parties and explain the proposed resolution. The committee will ask if this resolution is acceptable, and must note feedback for the record. However, the committee is not required to act on this feedback.

Finally the committee will make a report for the Steering Committee. In case the incident or report involves a current member of the Steering Committee, the committee will provide the report only to the other Steering Committee members.

The committee will never publicly discuss the issue apart from enacting an agreed resolution.

Transparency Reports

The committee will produce periodic summaries of the reports received and actions, if any, taken, without specific details.

Conflicts of Interest

In the event of any conflict of interest a committee member must immediately notify the other members, and recuse themselves if necessary. If a report concerns a possible violation by a current committee member, this member is excluded from the response process. For these cases, anyone can make a report directly to any of the committee members, as documented in the reporting guidelines.

Text derived from the Django project Code of Conduct Enforcement Manual, used under the Creative Commons Attribution license.