By Kelsey Breseman
EDGI is proud to announce an all-new Code of Conduct (see below), which places fresh emphasis on the values we embrace (rather than simply what behaviors will be disallowed) and references a restorative justice-based toolkit for conflict resolution.
The new Code of Conduct, a replacement to EDGI’s former Code of Conduct, applies across all EDGI spaces: our internal Slack, our externally-facing events, code repos, and in-person events (whenever those may occur again). Specific updates include a process for transparency reporting and examples of how scenarios of differing severity might be handled. These updates serve as a reference both for participants in EDGI spaces and for the committee of EDGI members who will handle reports of potential misconduct.
The Code of Conduct redraft included a workshop in an Open Coordinating Committee meeting in which participants reviewed EDGI’s existing Code of Conduct as well as several other organizations’ codes of conduct from Geek Feminism Wiki’s Code of Conduct Evaluations page. Participants used a virtual whiteboard to identify pros and cons of different approaches, and identified the Drupal Code of Conduct as a primary model. EDGI members Leslie Alanis and Kelsey Breseman then used this feedback to draft the new code of conduct, which then went through several rounds of community review before its formal adoption.
The redraft effort was supported and spurred through the Code for Science & Society Virtual Events Grant, which heavily advocates for event accessibility and good codes of conduct.