If you believe someone is in physical danger, consult with a volunteer or staff member for the appropriate crisis number, non-emergency number, or police number.
If you believe someone has violated the Above Clouds Code of Conduct, we encourage you to report it. 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 are fine with receiving reports where we decide to take no action for the sake of creating a safer space.
During the conference you can make a report:
- To a trained incident responder, who will be wearing brightly colored shirts.
- Email report@abovecloudsconf.com
- Contact the mobile phone number printed on your conference pass via voice call or SMS, to reach one of the lead incident responders.
If you make a report via email or phone, please include:
- Your contact info (so we can get in touch with you if we need to follow up)
- Date and time of the incident
- Location of incident
- Whether the incident is ongoing
- Description of the incident
- Identifying information of the reported person: name, physical appearance, height, clothing, voice accent, identifying badge information such as company name, ribbons, or badge number
- Additional circumstances surrounding the incident
- Other people involved in or witnesses to the incident and their contact information or description
All reports will be kept confidential. When we discuss incidents with people who are reported, we will anonymize details as much as we can to protect reporter privacy.
However, some incidents happen in one-on-one interactions, and even if the details are anonymized, the reported person may be able to guess who made the report. If you have concerns about retaliation or your personal safety, please note those in your report. We still encourage you to report, so that we can support you while keeping our conference attendees safe. In some cases, we can compile several anonymized reports into a pattern of behavior, and take action on that pattern.
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.
When you make a report to an incident responder, they will gather information about the incident according to the Above Clouds Staff Procedure For Incident Response.
After an incident responder takes the report, they will immediately consult with the lead incident responders.
If the incident is ongoing and needs to be immediately addressed, any one of the lead incident responders may take appropriate action to ensure the safety of everyone involved.
If the incident is less urgent, the three incident leads will meet within 24 hours to determine an appropriate response. Examples of possible incident responses are outlined in the Above Clouds Staff Procedure For Incident Response.
Before the conference, staff will have a mandatory meeting where incident response procedures will be outlined. After the conference, all incident responders will attend a debriefing session with the lead responders to discuss all incidents and determine any necessary follow-up actions.
Within one week of an incident report, the lead responders will follow up with the person who made the report and provided their contact information. The follow up may include:
- An acknowledgment that the Above Clouds lead responders discussed the situation
- Whether or not the report was determined to be a violation of the Code of Conduct
- What actions (if any) were taken to correcting the reporter behavior
In some cases, the lead responders may need to ask additional questions about the incident in order to identify the reported person.
If an incident responder has a conflict of interest for a report, they will recuse themselves from the discussion and handling of the incident. The incident documentation will not be available to them, and they will excuse themselves from any conversations involving handling the incident.
Should two out of the three lead incident responders need to recuse themselves, Ivan Čuljak (Above Clouds organizer) will step in as a lead incident responder.
This procedure has been adapted from PyCon Attendee Procedure For Reporting Code of Conduct Incidents, which was forked from Ada Initiative's guide titled "Conference anti-harassment/Responding to Reports”, the Django Project reporting guidelines (CC BY 3.0).