Reporting Guide

If you believe someone is violating the Code of Conduct, we ask that you report it to the Research Strategy Code of Conduct committee by emailing help@researchstrategy.info. All reports will be kept confidential. In some cases we may determine that a public statement will need to be made. If that's the case, the identities of all victims and reporters will remain confidential unless those individuals instruct us otherwise.

If you believe anyone is in physical danger, please notify appropriate law enforcement first. If you are unsure what law enforcement agency is appropriate, please include this in your report and we will attempt to notify them.

If you are unsure whether the incident is a violation, or whether the space where it happened is covered by this Code of Conduct, we encourage you to still report it. We would much rather have a few extra 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:

Your contact info (so we can get in touch with you if we need to follow up)
Names (real, nicknames, or pseudonyms) of any individuals involved. If there were other witnesses besides you, please try to include them as well
When and where the incident occurred. Please be as specific as possible
Your account of what occurred. If there is a publicly available record (e.g. a mailing list archive or a public IRC logger) please include 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

What happens after you file a report?

You will receive an email from the Research Strategy Code of Conduct committee acknowledging receipt immediately. We promise to acknowledge receipt within 24 hours (and will aim for much quicker than that).

The Code of Conduct committee will immediately meet to review the incident and determine:

What happened.
Whether this event constitutes a code of conduct violation.
Who the bad actor was.
Whether this is an ongoing situation, or if there is a threat to anyone's physical safety.

If this is determined to be an ongoing incident or a threat to physical safety, the committee's immediate priority will be to protect everyone involved. This means we may delay an "official" response until we believe that the situation has ended and that everyone is physically safe.

Once the committee has a complete account of the events they will make a decision as to how to respond. Responses may include:

Nothing (if we determine no violation occurred).
A private reprimand from the committee to the individual(s) involved.
A public reprimand.
An imposed vacation (i.e. asking someone to "take a week off" from a mailing list or IRC).
A permanent or temporary ban from some or all Research Strategy spaces (mailing lists, Slack channels, etc.)
A request for a public or private apology.

We'll respond within one week to the person who filed the report with either a resolution or an explanation of why the situation is not yet resolved.

Once we've determined our final action, we'll contact the original reporter to let them know what action (if any) we'll be taking. We'll take into account feedback from the reporter on the appropriateness of our response, but we don't guarantee we'll act on it.

Finally, the committee will make a report on the situation to the Research Strategy community leadership team. The leadership team may choose to publish a public report of the incident.

What if your report concerns a possible violation by a committee member?

If your report concerns a current member of the Code of Conduct committee, you may not feel comfortable sending your report to the committee, as all members will see the report.

In that case, you can make a report directly to any member of the Code of Conduct committee. Their email addresses are listed on the Code of Conduct page. The committee member will follow the usual enforcement process with the other members, but will exclude the member(s) that the report concerns from any discussion or decision making.

Reconsideration

Any of the parties directly involved or affected can request reconsideration of the committee’s decision. To make such a request, contact the Research Strategy Leadership Team at help@researchstrategy.info with your request and motivation and the leadership team will review the case.

Credit: This Code of Conduct Reporting Guideline is adapted from Django Code of Conduct Reporting Guide.