Code of Conduct Transparency Report

PyGotham strives to be a friendly and welcoming environment, and we take our code of conduct seriously. In the spirit of transparency, we publish a summary of the reports we received this year.

We appreciate those reports, and we encourage anyone who witnesses a code of conduct violation to report it via the methods listed at https://2018.pygotham.org/about/code-of-conduct/. PyGotham 2018 had eight code of conduct reports made to the organizers. Anonymized details of these reports are below.

During the public voting phase of talk selection:

• Three talk proposals were reported as potential code of conduct violations without specific detail. These were erroneous votes made by the reporters and were retracted when PyGotham staff requested details. We’ve noted that our report button is not clearly differentiated from the other voting buttons and plan to remedy that for the future.

• A talk proposal was reported by multiple voters as containing offensive subject matter and potentially advocating harassment. The proposal was removed from consideration during the public voting phase. We thank the individuals who reported this talk proposal for helping us maintain a welcoming environment for all PyGotham attendees.

• A talk proposal used potentially exclusionary language. After clarifying the issue with the reporter, the proposal’s author has been asked to update their language in the talk description. The talk’s content does not inherently violate PyGotham’s code of conduct, and this report did not result in its immediate removal from consideration for the conference.

• A talk proposal was reported as potentially containing offensive content. PyGotham staff asked the proposal’s author for clarification. The author assured us that the talk would not contain any content in violation of the code of conduct and that all content included in the talk would be relevant to the technical aspects. The talk was not removed from consideration for the conference.

At the conference:

• A speaker used the term “non-traditional” to describe same-sex relationships. Conference staff contacted the speaker to inform them of the inappropriate label. The speaker clarified that this was intended to quote the political viewpoint of some countries of the world and not representation of the speaker’s views. The speaker plans to rephrase this for clarity in future versions of the talk. Staff relayed the speaker’s response to the reporter, who accepted that this was a simple misunderstanding.

• An attendee joined a group of people having a conversation about treatment of people in the workplace. The attendee said the conversation was too heavy for breakfast and that the others should be more “positive,” making them feel uncomfortable. Staff spoke to the attendee who apologized and expressed remorse, acknowledging that they should have moved on rather than trying to change the conversation. Staff relayed the attendee’s response to the reporter.