Code of Conduct

Summary

 

This Code of Conduct is our way to encourage good behaviour and discourage bad behaviour whilst participating in The Study Chambers Community. We invite participation from many people to bring different perspectives to our community. We will do our part to foster a welcoming and professional environment free of harassment. We expect participants to communicate professionally and thoughtfully during their involvement with this community.

 

Participants may lose their good standing by engaging in misconduct. For example: insulting, threatening, or conveying unwelcome sexual content. We ask participants who observe conduct issues to report the incident directly to The Study Chambers at hello@thestudychambers.com. The Study Chambers will assign a respondent to address the issue. We may remove harassers from this community.

 

This code does not replace the terms of service or acceptable use policies of the websites used to support this project. We acknowledge that participants may be subject to additional conduct terms based on their employment which may govern their online expressions.

 

Details

This Code of Conduct makes our expectations of participants in this community explicit.

• We forbid harassment and abusive speech within this community.

• We request participants to report misconduct to The Study Chambers.

• We urge participants to refrain from using discussion forums to play out a fight.

 

Expected Behaviours

We expect participants in this community to conduct themselves professionally. Since our primary mode of communication is text on an online forum (e.g. issues, pull requests, comments, emails, or chats) devoid of vocal tone, gestures, or other context that is often vital to understanding, it is important that participants are attentive to their interaction style.

• Assume positive intent. We ask community members to assume positive intent on the part of other people’s communications. We may disagree on details, but we expect all suggestions to be supportive of the community goals.

• Respect participants. We expect occasional disagreements. Ask, explore, challenge, and then respectfully state if you agree or disagree. If your idea is rejected, be more persuasive not bitter.

• Welcoming to new members. New members bring new perspectives. Some ask questions that have been addressed before. Kindly point to existing discussions. Everyone is new to every project once.

• Be kind to beginners. Beginners use The Study Chambers to share and gain experience. They might not be experienced scholars yet, but we were all beginners once, and we need to engage kindly.

• Consider your impact on others.  We expect community members to be considerate and establish a balance their self-interest with communal interest.

• Use words carefully. We may not understand intent when you say something ironic. Often, people will misinterpret sarcasm in online communications. We ask community members to communicate plainly.

• Leave with class. When you wish to resign from participating in this community for any reason, you are free to do so.  Your exit should not be dramatic or bitter.

 

Unacceptable Behaviours

Participants remain in good standing when they do not engage in misconduct or harassment (some examples follow). We do not list all forms of harassment, nor imply some forms of harassment are not worthy of action. Any participant who feels harassed or observes harassment, should report the incident to the Response Team.

• Don’t be a bigot. Calling out project members by their identity or background in a negative or insulting manner. This includes, but is not limited to, slurs or insinuations related to protected or suspect classes e.g. race, color, citizenship, national origin, political belief, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, age, size, culture, ethnicity, genetic features, language, profession, national minority status, mental or physical ability.

• Don’t insult. Insulting remarks about a person’s lifestyle practices.

• Don’t dox. Revealing private information about other participants without explicit permission.

• Don’t intimidate. Threats of violence or intimidation of any project member.

• Don’t creep. Unwanted sexual attention or content unsuited for the subject of this project.

• Don’t inflame. We ask that victim of harassment not address their grievances in the public forum, as this often intensifies the problem. Report it, and let us address it off-line.

• Don’t disrupt. Sustained disruptions in a discussion.

• Plagiarism and collusion. Teaching materials including assessment information and answers must not be shared without permission of the educational institution or individual and where permission is given, you must credit the source.

 

Reporting Issues

If you experience or witness misconduct, or have any other concerns about the conduct of members of this project, please report it by contacting The Study Chambers who will handle your report with discretion. Your report should include:

• Your preferred contact information. We cannot process anonymous reports.

• Names (real or usernames) of those involved in the incident.

• Your account of what occurred, and if the incident is ongoing. Please provide links to or transcripts of the publicly available records (e.g. a mailing list archive or a public IRC logger), so that we can review it.

• Any additional information that may be helpful to achieve resolution.

After filing a report, a representative will contact you directly to review the incident and ask additional questions. We will consider reports to be confidential for the purpose of protecting victims of abuse.

 

Scope

The Study Chambers goal is to preserve the community if possible, and will restrict or remove participation from those who disrupt the community.

This code does not replace the terms of service or acceptable use policies that are provided by the websites used to support this community. Nor does this code apply to communications or actions that take place outside of the context of this community. Many participants in this project are also subject to codes of conduct based on their employment. This code is a social-contract that informs participants of our social expectations. It is not a terms of service or legal contract.

 

Adapted from Yahoo Open Source Code of Conduct, CC-BY 4.0

Available via: https://yahoo.github.io/oss-guide/docs/publishing/publishing-template/Code-of-Conduct.html