Deep South Devs is a community of developers living or working in Cape Town's south ... and beyond!. We meet to hear what our neighbours and peers are getting up to, be it what they're building or what they're learning. Everybody who participates in our community in one way or another is required to conform to this Code of Conduct (CoC). This includes online communications and meetup attendees, speakers, sponsors, moderators, organisers and volunteers.
Our goals with having this Code of Conduct are:
- Helping everyone feel safe and included. Some attendees are new to our community, and some may have had poor experiences in other communities. We want to set the expectation that harassment and other unpleasant behaviour are not acceptable. If people do have an unpleasant experience, they’ll know that’s neither the norm nor acceptable to us as a community.
- Helping to build trust that if an incident is reported, we will do a thorough investigation, and not blame the reporter. Even, for example, if the incident concerns someone in a position of power.
- Informing everyone of the expected behaviour. We are a diverse community, and having a Code of Conduct makes the expectations of everybody’s behaviour explicit and transparent.
- Having a framework for report handling. The Code of Conduct is the basis for dealing with a report, assessing whether the CoC was violated, and what action should be taken.
The Code of Conduct isn’t an exhaustive list of things that you must do, or can’t do. Rather, take it in the spirit in which it’s intended. It’s a guide to make it easier to enrich all of us and the communities in which we participate, and which we represent.
If you believe someone is violating the Code of Conduct, please report it. Contact details are listed at the end of this page.
- Be friendly and patient.
- Be welcoming. We strive to be a community that welcomes and supports people of all backgrounds and identities. This includes, but is not limited to members of any race, ethnicity, culture, national origin, color, immigration status, social and economic class, educational level, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, age, size, family status, religion, and mental and physical ability.
- Be considerate. Remember that we’re a world-wide community, so you might not be communicating in someone else’s primary language.
- Be respectful. Not all of us will agree all the time, but disagreement is no excuse for poor behavior and poor manners. We might all experience some frustration now and then, but we cannot allow that frustration to turn into a personal attack. It’s important to remember that a community where people feel uncomfortable or threatened is not a productive one.
- Be careful in the words that you choose. We are a community of professionals, and we conduct ourselves professionally. Be kind to others. Do not insult or put down other participants, individually or as a group. Harassment and other exclusionary behavior aren’t acceptable. This includes, but is not limited to: - Violent threats or language directed against another person. - Discriminatory jokes and language. - Being dishonest or attempting to cheat during our meetups - Posting inappropriate material on any of our social channels. - Personal insults, especially those using discriminatory terms. - Sustained disruption of talks or other events. - Knowingly making harmful false claims about a person.
- Be honest and don't try to cheat the system. We love awarding our attendees with gifts and prizes, courtesy of our sponsors, but it can sour the moment when people consistently attempt to cheat the system to maximize their winnings. We have a zero-tolerance policy on cheating during our raffles.
This Code of Conduct applies to all spaces managed by Deep South Devs. This includes:
- Meetups, whether online or in real life, including their discussion boards
- Presentation materials used in talks or sessions
- Slack
- Mailing lists
- GitHub
- Twitter hashtag and mentions
- LinkedIn engagements
- YouTube comments
- Any other forums created by the which the community uses for communication.
In addition, violations of this code outside our spaces may affect a person’s ability to participate in them.
When you sponsor a Deep South Devs event, we welcome you as a member of our community, and we expect you to be respectful to the community you operate within. All speakers are also subject to the Code of Conduct.
In addition, sponsors and speakers of meetups, and online activities should not employ aggressive recruiting techniques, invasive marketing behavior, or similar actions towards community members. In case of violations, sponsors might be sanctioned and expelled from the event or activity with no return of the sponsorship contribution.
In case of a Code of Conduct violation, some of the most common actions organisers may take are:
- No action (if the team determines no violation occurred).
- A private or public reprimand.
- Requiring that a public apology is made.
- Requiring that a participant stops their behaviour.
- Requiring that a participant prevents further contact with certain other participants.
- Not publishing the video of a talk.
- Cancelling a talk.
- Removing a participant from the meetup or online space.
- Requiring the participant to return all of their previous winnings or the equivalent.
The action taken is at the discretion of the Deep South Devs team. Participants are expected to comply immediately, and further action may be taken in case a participant does not comply. A record will be kept of all incidents.
If a Code of Conduct incident happens that affects you, or witness it affecting someone else, please contact the Deep South Devs team immediately. See the contact details below.
Please do not feel like you may be a burden to us by reporting incidents. Even if you happen to report multiple incidents. We rather consider reports an opportunity for us to act: by knowing about an incident, we can act on it, and often prevent it from continuing or repeating. But if we don’t know, we can’t take action.
If you are not sure whether the situation was a Code of Conduct violation, or whether the CoC applied to that particular space, we encourage you to still report it. We would much rather have a additional reports where we decide to take no action, rather than miss a report of an actual violation. We do not look negatively on you if we find the incident is not a violation. And knowing about incidents that are not violations, or happen outside our spaces, can also help us to improve the Code of Conduct or the processes surrounding it.
In your report please include, when possible:
- Your contact info (so we can get in touch with you)
- Names or descriptions of anyone who was involved or who witnessed the incident.
- When and where the incident occurred. Please be as specific as possible.
- Your account of what occurred. If there is a written record (e.g. tweets, comments, posts, or slack messages) please include screenshots, or otherwise a link.
- Any extra context you believe existed for the incident.
- If you believe this incident is ongoing.
- Any other information you believe we should have.
If you don’t have all of this information at the time, please still make the report and include as much information as you have.
- If you feel unsafe reporting in person, you may choose someone to represent you. In this case, we’d need their contact information, but we’d ask you to make clear that this person represents you.
All reports will be kept confidential. In some cases a public statement might be required (for example if the individual's actions directly or indirectly affected the community), but these reports are anonymized and do not include any personally identifying information.
- Alex Steinberg: alex@deepSouthdevs.co.za
- John Claude: john@deepsouthdevs.co.za
This Code of Conduct has taken inspiration from the Django Project Code of Conduct.