November 7, 2014
This is our draft code of conduct. Please open issues and submit pull requests if you think we should make changes.
This Code of Conduct is a work in progress. A formal reporting process has not yet been established. In the meantime, if you are being harassed in an 18F space, please speak to the organizer/admin of that space. If you can’t reach them or are uncomfortable talking to them, any member of the 18F team can put you in touch with 18F executive director Greg Godbout or co-founders Hillary Hartley or Aaron Snow. GSA employees also have the option of raising their concerns with Human Resources. Nothing in this policy is intended to limit your rights and responsibilities as established in law and GSA policy.
We aspire to create a culture where people work joyfully, communicate openly about things that matter and create great services for the American people and the world. We would like our team and our communities (including government and private sector colleagues) to reflect the diversity of America. We want to foster diversity of all kinds–not just the classes protected in law. Diversity fosters innovation. Diverse teams are creative teams. We need a diversity of perspective to create solutions for the real and urgent challenges we face.
This is the 18F Code of Conduct. We follow all Equal Employment Opportunity laws, but our expectations are higher. We expect everyone we work with to adhere to the GSA Anti-harassment Policy, even if they do not work for the General Services Administration. We expect everyone who works at 18F, attends 18F events and meetings, or participates in online forums or other virtual collaboration to follow this code of conduct and the laws and policies mentioned above. This applies to all of our methods of communication: office chatrooms, commit messages, email, and both formal and informal conversation.
Be a multiplier. Consider how your words and actions can unleash creativity and potential in others. Notice that silence is powerful. Give space to allow quieter voices the opportunity to emerge. Leverage the low cost of experimentation. Help create the safety net that encourages others to take risks. Say “Yes, and…”, challenging yourself to accept something unexpected from a colleague and take it further in a positive direction. Share your knowledge and your skills. Prioritize access for and input from those who are traditionally excluded from the civic process.
Create boundaries to your own behavior, and consider how you can create safe space that helps prevent unacceptable behavior by others. We do not seek to list all cases of unacceptable behavior, but provide examples to help guide our community in thinking through how to respond when we experience these types of behavior, whether directed at ourselves or others.
If you are unsure if something is appropriate behavior, it probably isn’t. Each person you interact with can define where that line is for them. Impact matters more than intent. Ensuring that your behavior does not have a negative impact is your responsibility. Problems happen when we assume that our way of thinking or behaving is the norm or ok with everyone. This is particularly problematic when we are in a position of power or privilege.
Here are a few examples of unacceptable behavior:
Negative or offensive remarks related to gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, mental illness, socioeconomic status or background, neuro(a)typicality, physical appearance, body size, clothing, race, or religion. Consider that calling attention to differences can feel alienating.
Touching people without their affirmative consent.
Sustained and negative disruption of meetings or talks.
Patronizing language or behavior.
Aggressive and micro-aggressive behavior, such as unconstructive criticism, providing corrections that do not improve the conversation (sometimes referred to as “well actually”s), repeatedly interrupting or talking over someone else, feigning surprise at someone’s lack of knowledge or awareness about a topic, or subtle prejudice (for example, comments like “That’s so easy my grandmother could do it.”).
Referring to people in a way that misidentifies their gender and/or rejects the validity of their gender identity; for instance by using incorrect pronouns or forms of address (misgendering).
18F drew from multiple sources to build this Code of Conduct, including:
Bridge Foundry Code of Conduct used for RailsBridge, and other related workshops and open source projects
http://adainitiative.org/2014/02/howto-design-a-code-of-conduct-for-your-community/
https://github.com/codeforamerica/codeofconduct
Relevant legal considerations:
This project is in the worldwide public domain. As stated in CONTRIBUTING:
This project is in the public domain within the United States, and copyright and related rights in the work worldwide are waived through the CC0 1.0 Universal public domain dedication.
All contributions to this project will be released under the CC0 dedication. By submitting a pull request, you are agreeing to comply with this waiver of copyright interest.