Your experiences will help us recommend support for our CoCc

The Carpentries has convened a task force to make recommendations for support structures and potential guidelines for incidents outside our Code of Conduct Committee’s (CoCc) mandate. This undertaking has come about as our community continues to grow and expand in the number of workshops we run, communities we reach, and diversity of our instructors and learners. Our Code of Conduct and CoCc are serving its purpose, but when incidents fall outside its mandate what can we do?

CoCc Mandate Task Force Members

Task force members were selected based on their expertise and experience as outlined in the call for Task force members. The task force consists of individuals with experience in cross-cultural communication, writing Code of Conduct documentation, and legal expertise. Additionally, one Carpentries staff liaison (Kari L. Jordan) and an Executive Council liaison (Karen Cranston) sit on the task force.

Task Force Aims

To help this task force meet its aims, one of which is to “recommend support structures and/or guidelines for handling incidents that happen within Carpentries spaces that are either not reported or are not yet incidents,” we need to hear from you, the individuals who are out there teaching workshops, organising community events, and advocating for The Carpentries. This is why we have developed an anonymous feedback collection process that we’d like you to participate in and circulate far and wide.

Feedback Collection Process

We have opened a form where you can safely provide anonymous feedback to the individuals of this task force. We’d like the community to share uncomfortable situations you’ve experienced or witnessed that occurred within and outside Carpentries spaces (in-person or online) involving Carpentries community members. Additionally, we want to know how the incidents were handled.

Form: Incidents within and outside Carpentries spaces

Each task force member has signed a confidentiality agreement and has agreed that the information collected in this form is for the sole purpose of making recommendations to the Executive Council for support structures and/or guidelines around our CoCc’s mandate. This form is explicitly not for CoC reporting purposes, but is for the Task Force to collect anonymous feedback to better understand our community and spaces. We will collect feedback from 13-31 August 2019. The form is set up to collect one incident per submission. We invite you to complete the form as many times as you like.

In addition to the anonymous feedback form, we’ve opened a GitHub issue asking for help identifying practices of similar organisations for handling incidents outside the mandate of its Code of Conduct/Code of Conduct Committee.

GitHub Issue

This work is important because our community members are important. Each of you brings a wonderful perspective and set of talents to our community, and we want to ensure your safety, comfort, and a sense of belonging among our community members.

For more information about the work of this task force, find our public-facing GitHub project , or get in touch.

GitHub Project