Proposal for new QIIME 2 community code of conduct

Ideas and Suggestions
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Hello QIIME 2 community members,
I’d like to propose a new code of conduct for the QIIME 2 community. In the last two QIIME 2 workshops that I’ve taught, all of the instructors agreed to abide by this code of conduct. It is adapted from the Contributor Covenant (version 1.4) which is widely used. I’ve also adopted this code of conduct for my IAB project, and plan to adopt this for other projects in my lab. I propose this as a starting point for a QIIME 2 community code of conduct.

One variable here is how and to whom code of conduct violations should be reported. In the document I linked above, this is listed as [email protected], which goes to multiple developers (so no one person is a gate-keeper for violation reports getting to the team). I think the list of who gets violation reports should be public. I’m interested in opinions on how and to whom violation reports should be sent (for example, maybe to all or some of the QIIME 2 Forum moderators). There’s a balance that needs to be struck here between ensuring privacy for an individual reporting a violation, and ensuring that all reports of violations are heard (even if they are complaints against someone who receives the report).

Please feel free to contact me to let me know if you have questions or concerns about this. You can reach me by direct message on the forum (if you’d like to discuss privately), or reply to this post (if you’d like to discuss publicly).

Note that the QIIME 2 Forum has had a code of conduct, but I (and several other developers who I’ve discussed it with) don’t feel like it’s an adequate code of conduct, but rather more of a discussion about how to use the forum.

Thanks!

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One of the things we did back in the stone age (2002, to be exact) at my college was provide a printed annual summary of the incidents that resulted in a student being suspended or expelled. These were relatively rare events so it was a brief read. The reports provided context for students to better understand what behaviors would warrant that kind of punishment. The transparency also adds precedent which can help managers stay consistent, and clarifies to the public why certain actions are adjudicated in a certain manner.

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Hi all, Thanks to everyone who took a look through this proposal over the last couple of months. We’re going to go live with this new code of conduct in the next few days.

We’re going to start by directing violation reports to the [email protected] address, which as I noted above goes to multiple developers. We remain open to suggestions about other ways to handle this, and to other input about this community code of conduct.

@devonorourke, thanks for your suggestion regarding transparency through public annual summaries! We’re going to see how things go over the first year, and assess whether that’s an approach we want to take.

Update: The Code of Conduct is now live in a temporary location and will migrate to a permanent location shortly.