Code of Conduct

PHPConf.Asia is a Pan-Asian conference aimed at spreading the adoption, knowledge and professionalism of PHP and its derivative technologies in the South East Asia developer community through talks, collaborations and networking.

We value each individual speaker, participant and member of our organising team – regardless of gender, language, race, religion, nationality, disability, appearance or sexual orientation.

We ask everyone attending the conference to respect each other, to provide an inclusive and safe environment where everyone can feel welcomed, participate, and learn together in peace and harmony.

Definitions

In view of our Asian setting, the following non-exclusive list of behaviour are construed as harassment:

  • Physical contact and simulated physical contact (eg, textual descriptions like “*hug*” or “*backrub*”) without consent or after a request to stop.
  • Offensive comments related to race, religion, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, mental illness, neuro(a)typicality, physical appearance
  • Gratuitous or off-topic sexual images or behaviour in spaces where they’re not appropriate
  • Threats of violence
  • Incitement of violence towards any individual, including encouraging a person to commit suicide or to engage in self-harm
  • Deliberate intimidation
  • Stalking or following
  • Harassing photography or recording, including logging online activity for harassment purposes
  • Sustained disruption of discussion
  • Unwelcome sexual attention
  • Pattern of inappropriate social contact, such as requesting/assuming inappropriate levels of intimacy with others
  • Continued one-on-one communication after requests to cease
  • Publication of non-harassing private communication

Be careful in the words that you choose. Excessive swearing and offensive jokes are not appropriate for PHPConf.Asia.

If a participant engages in behaviour that violates this code of conduct, the conference organisers may take any action they deem appropriate, including warning the offender or expulsion from the conference with no refund or reporting them to the police.

Reporting

If you are being harassed, notice that someone else is being harassed, or have any other concerns, please contact a member of conference staff. Conference staff will have “organiser” badges on their lanyard.

Attendee Procedure for Incident Handling

1. Keep in mind that all conference staff will be wearing a badge on their lanyard with “Organiser” on it. The staff will also be prepared to handle the incident. All of our staff are informed of the code of conduct policy and guide for handling harassment at the conference.

2. Report the harassment incident (preferably in writing) to a conference staff member. All reports are confidential. Please do not disclose public information about the incident until the staff have had sufficient time in which to address the situation. This is as much for your safety and protection as it is the other attendees. When reporting the event to staff, try to gather as much information as available but do not interview people about the incident. Staff will assist you in writing the report/collecting information.

The important information consists of:

  • Identifying information (name/badge number) of the participant doing the harassing
  • The behaviour that was in violation
  • The approximate time of the behaviour (if different than the time the report was made)
  • The circumstances surrounding the incident
  • Other people involved in the incident

The staff is well informed on how to deal with the incident and how to further proceed with the situation.

3. If everyone is presently physically safe, involve police or security only at a victim’s request. If you do feel your safety in jeopardy please do not hesitate to contact the police by dialling 999. If you do not have a mobile phone, please ask a member of venue staff to use a phone.

Note: Incidents that violate the Code of Conduct are extremely damaging to the community, and they will not be tolerated. The silver lining is that, in many cases, these incidents present a chance for the offenders, and the community at large, to grow, learn, and become better. PHPConf.Asia staff requests that they be your first resource when reporting a conference-related incident, so that they may enforce the Code of Conduct and take quick action toward a resolution.

A list of PHPConf.Asia organisers can be found below.

Staff Procedure for Incident Handling

Be sure to have a good understanding of our Code of Conduct policy. Also have a good understanding of what is expected from an attendee that wants to report a harassment incident.

Try to get as much of the incident in written form by the reporter. If you cannot, transcribe it yourself as it was told to you. The important information to gather include the following:

  • Identifying information (e.g. name, description) of the participant doing the harassing
  • The behaviour that was in violation
  • The approximate time of the behaviour (if different than the time the report was made)
  • The circumstances surrounding the incident
  • Other people involved in the incident

Prepare an initial response to the incident. This initial response is very important and will set the tone for PHPConf.Asia. Depending on the severity/details of the incident, please follow these guidelines:

  • If there is any general threat to attendees or the safety of anyone including conference staff is in doubt, summon security or police
  • Offer the victim a private place to sit
  • Ask “is there a friend or trusted person who you would like to be with you?” (if so, arrange for someone to fetch this person)
  • Ask them “how can I help?”
  • Provide them with your list of emergency contacts if they need help later
  • If everyone is presently physically safe, involve police or security only at a victim’s request

There are also some guidelines as to what not to do as an initial response:

  • Do not overtly invite them to withdraw the complaint or mention that withdrawal is OK. This suggests that you want them to do so, and is therefore coercive. “If you’re OK with it [pursuing the complaint]” suggests that you are by default pursuing it and is not coercive.
  • Do not ask for their advice on how to deal with the complaint. This is a staff responsibility.
  • Do not offer them input into penalties. This is the staff’s responsibility.

Once something is reported to a staff member, immediately meet with the conference chair and/or event coordinator. The main objectives of this meeting is to find out the following:

  • What happened?
  • Are we doing anything about it?
  • Who is doing those things?
  • When are they doing them?

After the staff meeting and discussion, have a staff member (preferably the conference chair or event coordinator if available) communicate with the alleged harasser. Make sure to inform them of what has been reported about them.

Allow the alleged harasser to give their side of the story to the staff. After this point, if the report stands, let the alleged harasser know what actions will be taken against them.

Some things for the staff to consider when dealing with Code of Conduct offenders:

  • Warning the harasser to cease their behaviour and that any further reports will result in sanctions
  • Requiring that the harasser avoid any interaction with, and physical proximity to, their victim for the remainder of the event
  • Ending a talk that violates the policy early
  • Not publishing the video or slides of a talk that violated the policy
  • Not allowing a speaker who violated the policy to give (further) talks at the event now or in the future
  • Immediately ending any event volunteer responsibilities and privileges the harasser holds
  • Requiring that the harasser not volunteer for future events your organization runs (either indefinitely or for a certain time period)
  • Requiring that the harasser refund any travel grants and similar they received (this would need to be a condition of the grant at the time of being awarded)
  • Requiring that the harasser immediately leave the event and not return
  • Banning the harasser from future events (either indefinitely or for a certain time period)
  • Removing a harasser from membership of relevant organisations
  • Publishing an account of the harassment and calling for the resignation of the harasser from their responsibilities (usually pursued by people without formal authority: may be called for if the harasser is the event leader, or refuses to stand aside from the conflict of interest, or similar, typically event staff have sufficient governing rights over their space that this isn’t as useful)

Give accused attendees a place to appeal to if there is one, but in the meantime the report stands. Keep in mind that it is not a good idea to encourage an apology from the harasser.

It is very important how we deal with the incident publicly. Our policy is to make sure that everyone aware of the initial incident is also made aware that it is not according to policy and that official action has been taken – while still respecting the privacy of individual attendees. When speaking to individuals (those who are aware of the incident, but were not involved with the incident) about the incident it is a good idea to keep the details out.

Depending on the incident, the conference chair, or designate, may decide to make one or more public announcements. If necessary, this will be done with a short announcement either during the plenary and/or through other channels. No one other than the conference chair or someone delegated authority from the conference chair should make any announcements. No personal information about either party will be disclosed as part of this process.

If some attendees were angered by the incident, it is best to apologise to them that the incident occurred to begin with. If there are residual hard feelings, suggest to them to write an email to the conference chair or to the event coordinator. It will be dealt with accordingly.

The contact details of key conference organisers are below:

Attribution

This Code of Conduct is adapted from PyCon Code of Conduct and the GeekFeminism.org Code of Conduct.