Code for sharing

A code of conduct allows us to host inclusive communities.

Code for sharing

This code of conduct is based on “Códigos para compartir, hackear, piratear en libertad” published by Partido Interdimensional Pirata.

We use gender neutral pronouns to include all peoples. In this sense, we encourage different forms, strategies and tools used to embody practices that aren’t anthropocentric, sexist, or cis-sexist in our language.

Introduction

This is an example code that strives to give a consensual frame to enable assistance, permanence and comfortable stay to everyone using and inhabiting Sutty, and to welcome new users and potential allies as well. It sets the bar for desirable and acceptable, and undesirable and intolerable conducts for its community. You can use it with or without changes, adapting it to your activities. This code is in permanent and collective mutation and feeds, copies and inspires on the following sources:

  • Conference anti-harassment/Policy

    This is an example anti-harassment policy suitable for most open source, computing, or technology-related conferences. It may be adopted unchanged or tweaked to suit your conference.Why have an official anti-harassment policy for your conference? First, it is necessary (unfortunately). Harassment at conferences is incredibly common - for example, see this timeline of sexist incidents in geek communities. Second, it sets expectations for behavior at the conference. Simply having an...

    https://geekfeminism.fandom.com/wiki/Conference_anti-harassment/Policy

  • GOSH Code of Conduct

    Source: Gathering for Open Science Hardware GOSH Code of Conduct Updated October 2022 The Gathering for Open Science Hardware (GOSH) is a diverse, global community working to enhance the sharing of open source scientific technologies…

    https://openhardware.science/gosh-2017/gosh-code-of-conduct/

  • https://hypatiasoftware.org/code-of-conduct/

We strive to sustain and boost an open community that invites and attains participation from more people, in all their diversity. We know that spaces related to computing and free software are mostly inhabited by middle class cis white males, even when an acknowledgement of the need to close the gender gap exists. In this sense, this is our little contribution, made from collective practices in multiple dimensions, reflections, readings, and experiences that grow every day.

That everyone needs to be treated well

Every being that we share space with deserves good treatment, respect and compassion. Here we share basic criteria for introduction and care.

Towards humans

Everyone is deserving of care and greetings and we have a right to assume good intentions from others.

When we refer to other humans, we try to be careful and respectful towards their gender identity. For this, the following principles are useful:

  • Don’t assume, judge or try to "interpret" the gender of others.

  • Don’t use gender beforehand. This is related to the previous item, but puts emphasis towards naturalized gendering behavior (e.g. assuming someone wearing a dress uses female pronouns…). The proposal is to discard them.

  • If a person makes explicit their pronouns and how they want to be referred to, we respect them, by listening and trying to use their preferred pronouns.

  • When presentations don’t include pronouns, we can ask respectfully for preferred pronouns. But be careful! This question must be asked to everyone, otherwise the "suspicion" is loaded towards a person in particular, and can become a form of harassment.

  • Do we need to know the gender of a person to communicate with or refer to them? Perhaps a better practice is to evade gendering others. But if this means using "them" compulsively, it could hurt people. (For instance, trans* people who use female or male pronouns may feel upset or outed when referring to them as "them", especially if they're the only ones to be gendered like this within a group!

  • When in doubt, asking and apologizing respectfully is a good way of being careful towards each other.

Important points to prevent our space from being expulsive

Listening to everyone's voice, within a caring climate

  • Listen to what everyone has to say, being mindful that everyone has something valuable to communicate.

  • For active listening, we prefer to ask first, before making judgement.

  • Sometimes staying quiet is a condition for others to be able to talk. Listening is an exercise that requires practice. So is talking.

  • We are interested in what everyone has to say. If you have more experience in participating, talking, and having opinions, take into account that this may not be the case for everyone. Give them the space to participate if they want to. But remember that encouraging someone is not the same as pressuring them!

  • We try to revise and cease practices that may have offended someone in order to promote a climate of respect. This doesn't mean to submit or agree to everything being said, but it sets a floor of respect towards enabling a dialogue when necessary.

  • It is at the very least disrespectful to repeat damaging behavior when already identified as such. It can make others uncomfortable or hurt, and end up expelling them from the space. We will repeat this point every time that is needed and tolerable.

  • We avoid this behavior ourselves and we help others identify when they are doing so.

  • In cases where calling out these behaviors is insufficient, we must come back to this agreement. This implies acting in accordance with them. This code may also be revised and updated if deemed necessary (loss of consensus).

  • One of the ways in which free software spaces can and tend to be expulsive is with attitudes that don't contemplate different kinds of knowledge and diversity of interlocutors. By appealing to technicisms, many comrades are kept out of the loop, without anyone verifying if everyone is keeping up with the conversation.

    We strongly recommend being alert to these dynamics so that we can avoid or revert them.

  • The flip side of this is mansplaining: a cis-male person assuming the authoritative place of knowledge to (over-)explain things to others in a patronizing manner and without taking into account whether the other wants to listen or not, whether they have something to say, what they already know or do, etc.

  • We believe there is no need to be an "authorized voice" to have an opinion or participate. Free culture is for everyone to share.

  • “Sharing is caring” vs. “Google is your friend”. Meritocracy and other traditional codes in cyber-communities operate against free culture. We support the pirate culture that seeks to onboard more pirates to their ships. We believe that culture is for everyone and we defy elitist practices.

  • We don’t assume that the other shares our likes, beliefs, class position, sexuality, etc. Misread others can be a form of violence. We recommend to always ask respectfully and to avoid comments or jokes that can be hurtful to others.

  • We speak and conduct ourselves in a kind and inclusive manner.

  • We respect different points of view, experiences, beliefs, etc., and we take all of them into account when in group settings so that it shows in our behavior.

  • We welcome criticism, especially the constructive kind ;)

  • We focus on what's best for the community, without losing warmth, respect and diversity between each of us.

  • We show empathy toward others. We want to share and communicate.

  • It is useful to keep in mind that everyone has different abilities, stories, experiences… It’s possible to some comments will not be understood. We try to avoid assuming bad faith and to use every accessibility tool we can.

  • The last item includes people who are neurodiverse or have experienced trauma. Sometimes, sarcasm or irony is not well received or understood by others. We must take this into account in order to seek out strategies to include everyone in our communications. On the other hand, if we think some topics could be sensitive to others (triggers, phobias, violence, explicit images of bodies, etc.), we use content warnings (cw) before sharing. For instance: "cw: comments about sexual and physical violence". This allows everyone to opt in to the content instead of being taken by surprise.

  • Let us respect the boundaries established by others (personal space, physical contact, desire to interact, privacy, not wanting to be photographed, etc.)

  • We want to welcome more pirates!

  • If you are going to take pictures or record a video, ask for consent from the people involved.

  • If minors appear, ask their families for permission.

Our commitment against harassment

In the interest of boosting an open, diverse and welcoming community, we as contributors and admins commit to making participation in our project and community a harassment-free experience for everyone, independent of age, body type, abilities, neurodiversity, ethnicity, gender identity and expression, experience level, nationality, physical appearance, race, religion, sexual identity or orientation.

Examples of unacceptable behavior from participants:

  • Offensive comments about gender/s, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, abilities, mental illness, neuro(a)typicality, physical appearance, body size, ethnicity or religion.

  • Unwelcome comments related to a person's lifestyle choices and practices, including those related to food, health, child upbringing, drug use and employment.

  • Insulting or pejorative comments (trolling) and personal or political attacks.

  • Assuming someone's gender. When in doubt, politely ask for their pronouns. Don't use name(s) that people don't use anymore, use the name, nickname or pseudonym that they prefer. (Do you really need their name, ID number, biometric data, birth chart, etc.?)

  • Sexual comments, images or behavior, in spaces where not appropriate.

  • Non-consensual physical contact, repeated contact after being asked to stop, invasion of personal space.

  • Threatening others.

  • Inciting violence towards others, including self-harm.

  • Deliberate intimidation.

  • To harass by photographing or recording without consent, including uploading someone's personal information to the Internet.

  • Constantly interrupting a conversation.

  • Making unwanted sexual comments.

  • Inappropriate social conduct, such as asking/assuming an inappropriate level of intimacy with others.

  • Trying to interact with a person after being asked not to.

  • Deliberately exposing any aspect of a person's identity without consent, unless necessary to protect others from intentional abuse.

  • Making public any kind of private conversation.

  • Other kinds of conduct that can be considered inappropriate in an environment of camaraderie.

  • Repetition of attitudes that others find offensive or in violation of this code.

Consequences

  • Any person that has been asked to stop offensive behavior is expected to do so immediately, even when in disagreement.

  • Admins can take any action deemed necessary and adequate, including expulsion of the person in question or removal of their site without warning. This decision is taken by admins via consensus and is reserved for extreme cases that compromise the continuity of the community or the possibility of participation in it by others without feeling harassed or threatened.

  • Admins reserve the right to forbid participation to any future activity and publication of websites.

As mentioned earlier, this code is in permanent collective mutation. Its main objective is to generate an inclusive and non-expulsive environment that is also transparent and open without missing stairs (“the missing stair from a house that everyone knows about but no one wants to take responsibility for”). It is important that it adapts to different activities and that it grows from contributions from its users. Receiving your comments and input will help us to achieve this objective.

Let’s keep in contact!

If you experienced a situation you would like to share, whether or not you were able to talk about it the moment it happened, you can contact us.

With regard to complaints or warnings about situations of violence, harassment, abuse or repetition of intolerable conduct, we take the responsibility of keeping them in mind and working with them so that the result is favorable to the collective spirit we choose and have described here. Although we do not personally agree with punitive practices, our explicit decision is to listen to and accompany the victim.