Code of Conduct

Our goal is to create a safe and welcoming community for anyone learning software development. We want every member of our community to be able to focus their full attention on becoming a better programmer. This is impossible to do if you are being harassed, stalked, or discriminated against.

Accordingly, all Founders and Coders members, as well as guests and visitors, are expected to show respect and courtesy to each other in all interactions, whether at our physical space, in our online community, or in other contexts.

To make sure that everyone has a common understanding of “show respect and courtesy to each other,” we have adopted the following code of conduct. The code of conduct is enforced by the Founders and Coders core team.

If someone has violated this code of conduct please report this to us using our complaints form.

Unacceptable behaviour

The following types of behaviour are unacceptable at Founders and Coders, both online and in-person, and constitute code of conduct violations.

Abusive behaviour

• Harassment—including offensive verbal comments related to gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, or religion, as well as sexual images in public spaces, deliberate intimidation, stalking, following, harassing photography or recording, inappropriate physical contact, and unwelcome sexual or romantic attention.
• Threats—threatening someone physically or verbally. For example, threatening to publicize sensitive information about someone’s personal life.

Unwelcoming behaviour

• Blatant discrimination—saying things that are explicitly racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic etc. For example, arguing that some people are less intelligent because of their gender, race or religion. Subtle mistakes made in conversation are not code of conduct violations. For example accidentally using the wrong pronouns for someone. However, repeating something after it has been pointed out to you that you broke a social rule, or antagonizing or arguing with someone who has pointed out your mistake is considered unwelcoming behaviour, and is not allowed.
• Maliciousness towards others—deliberately attempting to make others feel bad, name-calling, singling out others for derision or exclusion. For example, telling someone they’re not a real programmer or that they don’t belong on our programme.
• Being extremely unpleasant—for example, if we’ve received reports from multiple people of annoying, rude, or especially distracting behaviour that is making it harder for others to learn.
• Bringing guests into our spaces—it is important that we know exactly who is attending our events (for both safety and logistical reasons). Please do not bring guests to our physical space, and do not give out links to our private online events.

Scope

Members are held to the standards outlined in this code of conduct when interacting in our physical space, at our events, and in our Discord community, GitHub repositories, Zoom meetings or other online spaces.

In addition, Founders and Coders experiences often extend outside those spaces. Members go on walks together to get lunch near the space, attend meetups or conferences as a group, and communicate on social media. Abusive or unwelcoming behaviour between members still has a profound impact on individuals and on the community when it happens beyond our walls. The FAC core team will use our discretion when deciding whether to enforce this code of conduct and potentially remove someone from the community after reports of such behaviour happening outside of FAC, taking into account the impact on the individuals involved as well as the impact on the community and the public perception of our organisation.

When in doubt, please report unacceptable behaviour to us. If someone’s behaviour outside of FAC makes you feel unsafe at FAC, that is absolutely relevant and actionable for us.

Enforcement

We’ve categorized unacceptable behaviour into “abuse” and “unwelcoming behaviour” in the section above.

If we witness or receive a report about abusive behaviour, we will contact the perpetrator to have a conversation with them and verify what has transpired, and they will be removed from the community. Their accounts will be deactivated, they will be removed from the Discord community, and they will not be welcome in the physical space or at our events.

If we witness or receive a report about unwelcoming behaviour we will contact the individual involved to explain why their behaviour was unacceptable, and warn them that a second code of conduct violation will result in us removing them from the community.

You can read about the protocol that the core team will use to respond to reports of code of conduct violations in our complaints form.

License

This code of conduct is available under the terms of the CC0 license. It is adapted from the Recurse Center Code of Conduct.