2021 Code of Conduct Transparency Report

PyCascades aims to continue its legacy of being an inclusive and welcoming conference. Continuing from previous years, we have a code of conduct that applies to all of our attendees, speakers, volunteers, and staff. We also have reporting guidelines and infrastructure in place. This year, we did the following to further our efforts to uphold our community values:

• We added a Code of Conduct reporting mechanism directly within our virtual conference platform, Venueless, to make the reporting process seamless for those who were operating within the platform for the duration of the conference.
• We updated our Code of Conduct to include clearer guidelines around reporting using our new virtual platforms, as well adding explicit guidelines for video backgrounds and direct messaging behavior on Venueless.
• Our Code of Conduct committee consisted of members of the community, in addition to several organizers.

Incidents

During and leading up to the conference, we had the following incidents reported to our Code of Conduct committee. These have been summarized and anonymized.

• A speaker inadvertently included a picture that contained problematic content. We reached out to the speaker and asked if they were comfortable with us censoring the problematic content within that slide. They gave us permission to do so, as the removed content did not detract from the intent of the slide.
• An attendee reached out to a Code of Conduct committee member regarding a message that was posted in one of the public chats within Venueless. The committee did not find that the message in question violated our Code of Conduct, although we monitored the reported party for the rest of the conference to ensure that the message did not constitute a pattern of behavior. No further action was required.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Django and Write the Docs community for providing us with the framework needed to establish our Code of Conduct and associated procedures. We would like to thank various members of our community and organizing body who provided constructive feedback about our conduct reporting process, allowing us to improve. Finally, we would like to thank all of our volunteers who served on the Code of Conduct committee. These volunteers have to deal with emotionally difficult situations in order to ensure that we continue to have a community that is welcoming to all.

We would also be remiss if we did not document that we received an overwhelming amount of positive feedback about our Code of Conduct, our efforts towards increased accessibility, and the visibility & amplification of women, transgender & non-binary people, people of color, and other underrepresented minorities. We are proud to be a strong example of the diversity present within the Python community.