The Django Code of Conduct is committed to providing a safe, harassment-free environment for all Django events.
As an event organizer, it's best that you set up a Code of Conduct committee that will handle any Code of Conduct violations at the event. It's very important that your attendees feel and are protected at your event.
Establishing and enforcing Code of Conduct at events is not easy. Here is how Django Code of Conduct Working Group can help event organizers to ensure safe environments at events.
All in-person events operating under the Django Code of Conduct must meet the following baseline requirements in addition to the general Code of Conduct. Event organizers are encouraged to publish an event-specific Code of Conduct page that extends this baseline with any additional policies relevant to their venue, location, and format.
All attendees are expected to respect the personal space of others. Physical contact — including handshakes, hugs, or any other touch — requires consent. When in doubt, do not initiate physical contact. Events should communicate this expectation in their attendee-facing materials.
Uninvited or repeated physical contact, following someone from space to space, or blocking someone's ability to leave a conversation are violations of this Code of Conduct.
Organizers are responsible for communicating any restrictions on items brought into event spaces, in accordance with applicable local laws, venue policies, and cultural norms. Additional restrictions may be appropriate based on the nature and context of the event. If you need guidance on establishing item policies for your event, contact the Django CoC Working Group.
Attendees may not photograph or record other individuals without their explicit consent. Events should establish and communicate a clear opt-in or opt-out system (e.g. lanyard color, badge sticker) so that attendees can signal their preferences without having to state them repeatedly. This system should be explained during opening announcements.
Organizers are responsible for publishing any event-specific policies (venue rules, local legal requirements, accessibility measures, health and safety protocols) as an extension of this Code of Conduct. These extensions must not reduce the baseline protections above — they may only add to them. If you need help drafting an event-specific policy, contact the Django CoC Working Group.
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We advise that you share the list of attendees with us such that we are able to check it against our list of individuals who have violated the Code of Conduct. If any of the attendees appears on our list as flagged or banned, we will inform you about this.
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Similarly, before you announce your accepted speakers, you can send us the speaker list to see if any appear on our lists.
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Note that we can only tell you whether or not someone appears in our records as flagged or banned. We don't guarantee that people have never violated a Code of Conduct, as we won't inform you of minor incidents, and records of minor incidents are expunged after some time. We also don't do any research beyond our own lists.
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If you have any trouble with setting up a Code of Conduct policy for your event, reach out to us and we will be able to help you through the process of creating one.
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Event organizers should consider adopting additional safety policies that are relevant to the location and context of their event. These may include policies regarding weapons, accessibility requirements, health and safety protocols, or other measures that will contribute to a safer and more inclusive experience for all attendees. We encourage organizers to research local laws, cultural norms, and community expectations when developing these policies. If you need guidance on implementing location-specific safety measures, please reach out to us.
Every event must publicly designate at least one named Code of Conduct contact before the event begins. Attendees should be able to identify these people by name (and ideally photo) on the event website, in printed materials, and at the event itself. Each designated contact must publish a direct, individual email address — not a shared group address — so that reporters can choose who to approach based on their comfort level.
The number and structure of contacts should be appropriate to the event's size and context:
- Conferences (e.g. DjangoCon): A dedicated Code of Conduct committee of at least two people, independent of the organizing team where possible, with clear contact information published in advance.
- Workshops and sprints: At minimum, the lead organizer or a designated coach must be identified as the CoC contact. If the event is co-located with a larger event, the larger event's CoC team serves as the escalation path.
Contacts should be briefed on the enforcement process and have a clear channel to reach the Django CoC Working Group during the event.
- If you encounter a Code of Conduct violation at your event that needs to be addressed immediately, you can reach out to us and we will try to help you through the process of resolving it.
Your designated CoC contacts should be easy for attendees to find and approach. We recommend:
- Announcing CoC contacts and how to reach them at the start of each day.
- Providing a private, in-person reporting option (a designated quiet location or a scheduled office-hours slot) in addition to any written or email channel.
- Having contacts wear a visible identifier (lanyard, badge color, etc.) so attendees can find them without having to ask.
When a report is made on-site, the contact should: listen without judgment, take brief notes, reassure the reporter of confidentiality, and decide whether immediate action is needed (asking someone to leave a space, pausing an activity) versus whether the matter can be handled after the fact. Contacts should not investigate or adjudicate alone — they should loop in the rest of the CoC team and, for anything serious, contact the Django CoC Working Group.
Events in the Django community are strongly encouraged to keep reports on all Code of Conduct incidents they handle, and send these reports to the working group after the end of the event. Reports should include names of people involved and, ideally, a description of the facts determined by the event team, the review of the incident, actions taken, and responses to actions taken. We also appreciate any screenshots of original slack or social media messages, or recordings of talks, that show the violation, and copies of message exchanges between the team and any reporters or reported parties.
Upon receiving reports from an event, the working group will:
- Confirm receipt of the reports to the event.
- Review all reports.
- Assess whether any additional action from the working group is needed.
- Record all reports in the working group's records.
Reporting any (even resolved) Code of Conduct violations to us helps us create one, central record of incidents to help make all events safer.
Publishing a transparency report after the event concludes is a critical step for building trust within the community and ensuring the community that any issues that have been reported have been handled in an appropriate manner.
This guide is provided for event organizers. We particularly hope it is useful for Conference Chairs and Code of Conduct responders.
Note that this is the public-facing summary transparency report. For operational purposes, an event should also keep private records of all reports and issues at the event, which should be shared with the Django Code of Conduct Working Group.
A timely report helps everybody:
- Reporters know that their reports were taken seriously;
- Attendees can see that Code of Conduct reports are an integral part of the event and so feel confident to attend in the future and report issues they themselves witness;
- Organizers demonstrate strong commitment to follow their stated goals and procedures.
Since it's important to be able to recall details of covered issues accurately, a timely report will be of higher quality.
Releasing an initial transparency report should be part of the closing ceremony. Following up with affected parties might take time after the event. Therefore, a separate complete report can be provided in writing at a later time. It shouldn't take more than a month after the event to close the loop on the final report.
An initial in-person report during the closing ceremony is highly recommended. Any information available by that time, including statistics on the number of reports, will be very valuable to attendees at the event. Cases that need following up shouldn't block the initial report from being presented.
After the event, any official communication channel used with the attendees is a good option for letting people know a transparency report is available. Examples include:
- Official website for the event;
- Official blog for the event and/or organization behind it;
- Newsletter or mailing list(s) in use around the event.
Starting with some general information about the event puts all data in context. Include the size of the event, with separate numbers for in-person and online attendees, if applicable. Briefly describe the reporting process: who the people enforcing the Code of Conduct and responding to reports were, how an attendee could report a Code of Conduct issue, and where this information was available for attendees to find.
The main part of the report will be the statistics of reports received (including past 3-5 years historical statistics can be helpful for comparison) and the report status/progress for each report.
If there was a post-event survey asking attendees about their confidence in reporting issues, the results of that survey can be included in the following year's transparency report.
Make sure the transparency report does not include any sensitive information such as the names or any identifiable information of the reporters and the reported people. In the event that law enforcement was called, you should say they were called and not make further comments on the details as it could adversely affect official action.
Our documents and policies are adapted from and inspired by a number of sources.