Why Codes of Conduct Matter

AM: Hi again everyone, and welcome to The Secret Sauce, a short podcast by Palantir.net, that offers a quick piece of advice to help your business run smoother.  I’m Allison Manley, an Account Manager here at Palantir, and today’s advice comes from one of the Founders of Palantir, George DeMet, who is going to address the need for having a code of conduct at your organization or event. GD: Hi, my name is George DeMet, and I’m the founder and CEO of Palantir.net. Today, I’m going to be talking about codes of conduct and how they can help make communities, organizations, and events more inclusive. First, a little bit of background. I’m currently the acting chair of the Drupal Community Working Group, whose mission is to uphold the Drupal Code of Conduct in order to maintain a friendly and welcoming community for the Drupal project. In the past, I have also helped write codes of conduct for open source community events, including DrupalCon, and have provided consultation and guidance to organizations and groups who are looking to adopt codes of conduct for themselves. In its simplest form, a code of conduct is a policy used by an organization to establish the standards for behavior and appropriate conduct when interacting with others in a defined space like a conference, workplace, project, or event venue. Almost any venue that serves the public, such a theater, museum, sports arena, or ice skating rink, has a code of conduct posted that sets expectations for people so that they don’t engage in unsafe behavior that interferes with the ability of others to enjoy that space. In the context of technology communities, codes of conduct fill a similar function, helping to create inclusive spaces where people can feel safe and welcome to contribute. Unfortunately, what we’ve seen all too frequently is that even as more and more people are participating in open source and other technology communities, the number of incidents of harassment has also increased. Technology communities in general, and open source projects in particular, frequently suffer from a lack of diversity, with low participation rates by women, people of color, and other marginalized populations who are frequently the targets of harassing behavior. A well-written and implemented code of conduct can help address those issues by making it clear that communities value openness and diversity, and are committed to providing an inclusive space that is free from harassment and where all kinds of people can contribute in a professional manner.  Just having a code of conduct won’t get rid of every issue, but making sure that everyone underst ands the values of your community and the ground rules for interacting with others makes a huge difference. A good code of conduct will have the impact of making it easier for everyone to participate in your community. So, how do you go about drafting a code of conduct? Fortunately, there’s a ton of great resources out there that provide a great foundation that you can build upon to meet the needs of your organization or community. Don’t worry, we’ll provide links to all of these in the description of this episode, as well as on our website at palantir.net. For conferences and other events looking for a good anti-harassment policy, the Ada Initiative’s Conference Code of Conduct is a great example for others to use. What it does well is make it clear that harassment will not be tolerated at the event, provides examples of what kinds of behaviors constitute harassment and tells folks how they can let event staff or organizers know if they feel they’ve been subjected to harassing behavior.  The code of conduct that we use at Palantir for meetups and other events that we host is based heavily on the Ada Initiative code, with some additional language borrowed from the code of conduct used by the Drupal Association for DrupalCons and other events.  It’s very important that everyone who attends your event be awa