Updates to the rainbowR Code of Conduct

Ensuring rainbowR is a safe and healthy community with an improved CoC and procedures, and dedicated CoC committee

We are committed to the well-being of rainbowR and its members. It is of upmost importance that rainbowR is a safe and healthy community, one which is open, welcoming, diverse, and inclusive. A community where members treat each other with respect and kindness. A Code of Conduct is essential for ensuring this.

When folks join rainbowR, or participate in any rainbowR event, they must agree to follow our Code of Conduct (CoC), which contains the following pledge:

We as members, contributors, and leaders pledge to make participation in rainbowR a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of sexual identity and orientation, sex characteristics, gender identity and expression, age, body size, visible or invisible disability, ethnicity, level of experience, education, socio-economic status, nationality, personal appearance, race, caste, color, or religion. We pledge to act and interact in ways that contribute to an open, welcoming, diverse, inclusive, and healthy community.

The CoC then sets out our standards (including examples of what constitutes both positive and unacceptable behaviour). It explains how to make a report, who will handle it and how, and the consequences of breaches of the CoC, in proportion to the impact they have had on the community.

Why the update?

rainbowR adopted a Code of Conduct when the community was relaunched in June 2022. We adapted the Contributor Covenant, version 2.1, with additional material from the R-Ladies Code of Conduct. We also adopted community impact guidelines inspired Mozilla’s code of conduct enforcement ladder.

It was fine for a fledgling community.

As we’ve grown (we’re now over 250 members at the time of writing), we’ve realised there were gaps in our original version, that the reporting process was in need of improvement, and that we needed a dedicated CoC committee.

What’s changed?

• We now have a dedicated Code of Conduct committee, responsible for ensuring that our CoC is fit for purpose, reviewing complaints, and enforcement. This committee replaces the vaguer “Community leaders” from the previous version of the CoC.
• A dedicated e-mail for contacting the CoC committee, coc@rainbowr.org.
• We also now have external, independent advisors, who will handle any concerns that are not suitable for the CoC committee (for example, if the complaint is against a member of that committee). This is the Fellowship team at the Software Sustainability Institute, with Oscar Seip as the primary point of contact there.
• There are now three ways to raise a concern:
  • by e-mail to coc@rainbowr.org
  • via the rainbowR Code of Conduct Incident Report Form, which can be completed anonymously
  • if necessary, directly to the external, independent advisors: oscar.seip@manchester.ac.uk
• The following have been added as examples of unacceptable behaviour:
  • Retaliation, such as punishing, intimidating, or excluding someone for reporting a concern or participating in an investigation
  • Using religious or moral beliefs as a justification or excuse for behaviour that does not comply with this Code of Conduct
• The Code of Conduct now contains an outline of the reporting, reviewing and appeals process, including a time frame for each step
• The CoC committee has the right to remove a member of any rainbowR committee from their committee role, if they consider it an appropriate consequence for any action they deem in violation of this Code of Conduct by that person.
• Increased scope: behavior that occurs outside rainbowR spaces may be considered when it involves a rainbowR member and creates a risk of harm within the rainbowR community. The Code of Conduct committee will use discretion and will only act on external behavior when it directly impacts the safety or well-being of the community.

The majority of the changes can be seen in this diff, with further tweaks in this diff and this diff.

How to comment

We welcome feedback on the Code of Conduct, and suggestions for improvement. These can be raised either as an issue in our governance repo on GitHub or by email to coc@rainbowr.org.