Version 1.0, 2020-04-15

Community Guidelines

ASAPbio’s Community Guidelines outline the behavior and the values that we aim to uphold as a Community, they represent the way in which we commit to engage with each other. The guidelines represent ASAPbio’s commitment to providing a welcoming and productive experience for all members of our community. The good practice guidelines are:

  • Show respect for other members of the ASAPbio community, as well as the larger research community
  • Use collegial, professional and inclusive language
  • Value and respect different viewpoints and experiences, including constructive feedback
  • Encourage diversity
  • Share information, resources, requests or experiences that are of relevance to the broader ASAPbio Community and align to the goals of ASAPbio

Code of Conduct

ASAPbio is committed to providing a safe, inclusive, welcoming, and harassment-free experience for everyone and expect our Code of Conduct to be honored. Anyone who does not abide by this Code of Conduct may be asked to leave the community.

We ask all ASAPbio community members and staff to be civil, constructive, and respectful when interacting for ASAPbio-related purposes in all spaces, including but not limited to Slack, email, Twitter and in-person. We try to cultivate a community with shared values, where people are comfortable exploring ideas, asking questions, and saying things like “I don’t understand” or “Why”. Assume competence in the people you interact with. There are no stupid questions. Be considerate in speech and actions, and actively seek to acknowledge and respect the boundaries of fellow community members. Take care of each other. 

Alert a member of the Code of Conduct Committee (named below) if you notice a dangerous situation, someone in distress, or a potential violation of this Code of Conduct, even if it seems inconsequential. Please follow the Reporting Guidelines below: in brief, if you experience or witness unacceptable behavior, or have any other concerns, please submit a report to the Committee as soon as possible using this form. Alternatively, you may email conduct@asapbio.org, which will go to all listed Committee members. 

We do not tolerate harassment in any form. Refrain from demeaning, discriminatory, or harassing behavior and speech. Harassment includes, but is not limited to:

  • offensive comments related to gender, gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, religion (or lack thereof), or technology choices
  • unwelcome comments regarding a person’s lifestyle choices and practices, including those related to food, health, parenting, drugs, or employment
  • sustained or willful disruption of discussions, talks, or other events
  • deliberate intimidation
  • continued one-on-one communication after requests to cease
  • unwanted photography or recording, including logging online activity for harassment purposes
  • pattern of inappropriate social contact, such as requesting/assuming inappropriate levels of intimacy with others
  • inappropriate physical contact without consent or after a request to stop
  • stalking or following
  • threats of violence or incitement of violence towards any individual, including encouraging a person to commit suicide or to engage in self-harm
  • use of sexual or discriminatory imagery, comments, or jokes
  • unwelcome sexual attention
  • deliberate ‘outing’ of any aspect of a person’s identity without their consent except as necessary to protect vulnerable people from intentional abuse
  • deliberate misgendering or use of ‘dead’ or rejected names
  • publication of non-harassing private communication

We prioritize marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort. We will not act on complaints regarding:

  • ‘reverse’ -isms, including ‘reverse racism,’ ‘reverse sexism,’ and ‘cisphobia’
  • reasonable communication of boundaries, such as “leave me alone,” “go away,” or “I’m not discussing this with you”
  • communicating in a ‘tone’ you don’t find congenial
  • criticizing racist, sexist, cissexist, or otherwise oppressive behavior or assumptions

If anyone engages in harassing behavior, the Committee will take action that may include warning the offender, asking them to stop the behaviour immediately, asking them to leave an event or an online channel either temporarily or permanently, or seeking help from law enforcement.

We recognise that the scientific community is in fact many overlapping communities and we take the reporting of incidents in other related communities very seriously. This Code of Conduct applies to ASAPbio spaces, but if you are being harassed by a member of the ASAPbio community or staff outside our spaces, and at any point in time, we still want to know about it. The Code of Conduct Committee reserves the right to exclude people from ASAPbio activities based on their past behavior, including behavior outside ASAPbio spaces and behavior towards people who are not involved with ASAPbio.

In order to protect Committee members from abuse and burnout, we reserve the right to reject any report we believe to have been made in bad faith. Reports intended to silence legitimate criticism may be deleted without response.

We will respect confidentiality requests for the purpose of protecting victims of abuse. At our discretion, we may publicly name a person about whom we’ve received harassment complaints, or privately warn third parties about them, if we believe that doing so will increase the safety of ASAPbio community members or the general public. We will not name harassment victims without their affirmative consent.

We will retain written notes on incidents and reports in accordance with the ASAPbio Privacy Policy. These notes will be retained within a password-protected email account (conduct@asapbio.org) and private Google Drive folder, accessible only by the Code of Conduct committee. Committee members will have access removed to any incidents in which their Committee involvement is recused (see below).

Note that conduct@asapbio.org is monitored only when there is an active incident. To initiate an incident report, fill out the form or contact a committee member directly (see below).

We thank you for working with us to make ASAPbio a safe, enjoyable, friendly and enriching experience for everyone who participates.

Reporting Guidelines

The ASAPbio Code of Conduct Committee includes Jessica Polka, Iratxe Puebla, Jennifer Lin (Board of Directors), Chiara Bertipaglia (ASAPbio community member). Where only one member of the Committee is available, a reserve may be recruited from the ASAPbio Board of Directors to ensure the Committee is a minimum of 2 people.

If you experience or witness unacceptable behavior, or have any other concerns, please submit a report to the Committee as soon as possible using this form. You may also make a report directly to one member of the Committee by contacting them directly and they will then fill out the form:

Contact jessica.polka@asapbio.org for this list of emails

We will respond to your report as promptly as we can. The Code of Conduct Committee will investigate and decide responses to reports with the aim of making a decision and implementing enforcement as soon as is reasonably possible.

If you are more comfortable submitting a report anonymously, please do so using the form and enter conduct@asapbio.org as the email address. Reports submitted anonymously are taken seriously and we will do our best to respond to the situation; however, submitting anonymously may inhibit the committee’s ability to take specific action.

If any member of the Committee has a conflict of interest with a report, they will be recused and will not have access to the content or process of the report followup. Please note that all named committee members will have access to every initial report submitted using the form. To keep this first report confidential from any of the named people, please submit your first report by direct email to any of the committee members you are comfortable disclosing the information to, and be explicit about which committee member(s) you do not consent to sharing the information with.

At an in-person ASAPbio event, please reach out to anyone named as a member of that event-specific Code of Conduct Committee, or to any venue staff or security present at the event. Where these channels are not available, please contact the ASAPbio Code of Conduct committee as detailed above. 

If you are planning to attend an upcoming event or join an online channel, and have concerns regarding another individual who may be present, please submit a report as described above. We will work with you to take precautions to ensure your comfort and safety. These precautions may include: providing an escort, preparing onsite event staff, and/or providing on-site contact cell phone numbers for immediate contact. In some cases, we may take action to prevent a harasser from attending an in-person event or accessing an online space that we manage. 

Changelog

Version 1.0 published and immediately in effect on 2020-04-15.

License and Credits

This Code of Conduct is adapted from the ROpenSci Code of Conduct (accessed November 20, 2019; available CC0), the OpenCon Code of Conduct, the Geek Feminism example Community  anti-harassment policy, and The Carpentries Code of conduct. These codes were developed from many additional sources, including: 

To the extent possible under law, ASAPbio has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to ASAPbio Code of Conduct.