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Purpose of this document and process

The Program Chairs and Local Organizing Committee of The Web Conference 2018 intend to establish a Code of Conduct for conference participants. This document is published to the community as a draft, open for comments and discussions. Our goal is to propose it to the IW3C2 for the conference series.

Timeline :

• March 23^rd 2018 : First publication and call for comments
• April 23^rd 2018 : Implementation at The Web Conference 2018
• April 27^th 2018 : End of the comment
• April 28^th 2018 : Submission to IW3C2

Diversity and inclusion statement

The open exchange of ideas and the freedom of thought and expression are central to the aims and goals of The Web Conference. The organizers aim to provide a safe, respectful and welcoming conference environment for everyone involved, regardless of age, sex, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, (dis)ability, physical appearance, race, ethnicity, nationality, religious or philosophical beliefs. Moreover, we will do our best to accommodate specific needs such as accessibility, or dietary requirements. We cannot promise to solve every issue, but will try our best.

We do not tolerate harassment of conference participants. Harassment includes but is not limited to overt and/or covert acts of:

• Verbal accusations or bullying
• Deliberate intimidation, stalking, or following both in person and online
• Sustained disruption of talks or other events
• Interference with a person’s participation or opportunity for participation
• Inappropriate physical contact
• Unwelcome attention
• Advocating for, or encouraging, any of the above behaviours

We expect all interactions among conference participants (including attendees, sponsors and volunteers) to be respectful and constructive, including interactions during the review process, at the conference itself (including social events), and on related social media. Conference participants violating these rules may be sanctioned or expelled from the conference (without a refund) at the discretion of the conference organizers. The policy is not intended to inhibit challenging scientific debate, but rather to promote it through ensuring that all are welcome to participate in shared spirit of scientific inquiry.

It is the responsibility of the community as a whole to promote an inclusive and positive environment for our scholarly activities. Anyone witnessing, or subject to, unacceptable behavior are encouraged to speak up publicly and within the moment, in order to let the misbehaving person, and others, know that what happened is not inclusive behaviour.

This makes for a situation from which all parties can learn, and is one which promotes understanding. Additionally it makes it possible for that person to de-escalate the situation by correcting themselves and apologising. Otherwise, problems should be notified to individual members of the Diversity and Inclusivity Committee, the General Chairs, or the Diversity and Inclusivity Committee directly at diversity (at) www2018.thewebconf.org, or anonymously through this form.

Sources

The text above was largely inspired by the following sources:

• https://www.aclweb.org/adminwiki/index.php?title=Anti-Harassment_Policy
• https://chi2017.acm.org/diversity-inclusion-statement.html
• https://www.humancomputation.com/2018/codeofconduct.html
• https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/anti-harassment/