sudo

The SUDO: Code of Conduct

The SUDO is a community based in Portland, OR with a welcoming, cooperative and anti-professional spirit. We are unified in the belief that the transformative and empowering technology of computers is dramatically underrealized. We want to explore the world of beautiful possibilities that lie outside the mundane and the economically successful. We’re here to explore it together, to discuss theory and practice, and to support each other.

Your participation at events and membership in the SUDO is conditional on your compliance with our code of conduct. These rules are in place to ensure we create a welcoming and inclusive environment for all, especially those often excluded or made to feel unwelcome in technology spaces.

Computing currently reflects the interests of a narrow minority of people. A directed effort is needed to broaden the accessibility of computing and amplify the influence of historically underrepresented people in shaping its future. This code of conduct is one part of that effort.

It’s called a “code of conduct” so that people are easily able to locate it, but don’t get hung up on the name. The goal is that this document should help you feel more confident participating in our community by knowing what values we hold and how we express them.

The code of conduct applies to all community-affiliated spaces, including but not limited to our hosted live events, our digital spaces, and external events where you’re interacting with SUDO members. The examples listed below are illustrative, not exhaustive.

Behaviour

We encourage you to:

• Discuss the work of community members in the ways that they invite. If someone asks broadly for feedback on their work, please be kind in your critique, focus on the work itself, and be constructive. If someone asks for a specific kind of feedback (like encouragement, or feedback on a specific aspect of the work), please respect that request.
• Discuss the material that other community members share links to, but please be respectful toward both the author of those materials and the person who shared them.
• Discuss economics, representation, social movements and dynamics, and other matters of society and the world around us as they relate to the interests of our community. Our interest is in the world as it is, in its fullness. That means we need to be able to talk about these things.

We do not allow abusive behavior. This looks like:

• Harassment. This includes 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.

We have zero tolerance for people who commit acts of harassment, hate speech, or abuse anywhere, whether inside or outside the community.

There are other behaviors that are not immediately zero-tolerance, and SUDO organizers will give the implicated party feedback and another chance. This is unwelcoming behavior:

• Maliciousness towards other members—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 in the SUDO.
• Being especially unpleasant—for example, if we’ve received reports from multiple members of annoying, rude, or especially distracting behavior that disrupts SUDO events.

A documented pattern of unwelcoming behavior is grounds for removal from current and future SUDO spaces.

Reporting

When you see behavior that breaks any of the rules outlined in this document, please contact the SUDO facilitator(s).

Please include in your message:

• all involved members
• the event or space where the incident occured
• a description of the incident itself.

The SUDO is a community in its infancy, and we’re committed to refining this code of conduct aligned to the values we’ve expressed above.

Thanks

This code of conduct is inspired and derived directly from these others:

• https://github.com/feelingofcomputing/code-of-conduct
• https://queercomputerclub.ca/code-of-conduct/
• https://www.recurse.com/code-of-conduct