Have a code of conduct

A code of conduct explains what sort of behaviour is acceptable at your event, how violations will be dealt with, and how to report a problem. It shows potential attendees that they should feel safe at your event.

It’s important to run an event where everybody is shown respect, courtesy, and kindness, and a code of conduct (CoC) is a reminder for everybody to do that.

A good code of conduct will explain:

What sort of behaviour is acceptable at the event
What to do if somebody sees bad behaviour (i.e., how to report it to the organisers)
How the organisers will handle a report

Advertise the CoC prominently – on your website, when buying tickets, in your introductory remarks at the start of the day. Make sure people know about it.

A code of conduct is only as good as its enforcement – so you have to follow through with it. Have a documented procedure for dealing with bad behaviour, and stick to it.

Don’t be shy about calling out problems if they occur. At PyCon UK 2016, if there was a CoC violation, we did three things:

We tweeted about it from the conference Twitter account
The problem was mentioned in the opening remarks the following day, with an explanation of what happened and how it was resolved
After the conference, there was a code of conduct report that summarised the two issues

This helps people see that you’re enforcing the CoC (and hopefully makes them feel more comfortable making a report, if they need to). It also serves as a counterpoint to people who say “this sort of behaviour doesn’t happen in our community” – unfortunately, it almost certainly does.

Have a code of conduct

Further reading