Culture > Code of Conduct
Published on Jul 1, 2020 by Ilona Brand
People at the 2nd progressivehacknight
Code of Conduct
The Progressive HackNight is dedicated to making great ideas happen. We embrace progressive ideals, and want our space to be safe, productive, and inspiring. We have put together these rules to ensure that our events and structures hold true to our progressive values.
Social Rules 1
No feigning surprise
The first rule means you shouldn’t act surprised when people say they don’t know something. This applies to both technical things (“What?! I can’t believe you don’t know what the stack is!”) and non-technical things (“You don’t know who RMS is?!”). Similarly, this applies to acting surprised when someone does know something (“Oh wow! You’ve used React before?”).
No well-actually’s
A well-actually happens when someone says something that’s almost - but not entirely - correct, and you say, “well, actually…” and then give a minor correction. We want to promote an educational space and encourage people to feel comfortable learning from each other and teaching each other too. The behavior that we’re specifically addressing here is a correction that is used to assert knowledge or dominance in a situation.
No back-seat driving
If you overhear people working through a problem, you shouldn’t intermittently lob advice across the room. This can lead to the “too many cooks” problem, but more importantly, it can be rude and disruptive to half-participate in a conversation.
No subtle -isms
Our last social rule bans subtle racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and other kinds of bias. Subtle -isms are small things that make others feel unwelcome, things that we all sometimes do by mistake.
Your safety is important to us
Progressive HackNight is dedicated to providing a harassment-free experience for everyone: regardless of gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, religion, or anything else.
We take this very seriously.
If you feel like there is a way we could improve our culture or you felt uncomfortable at a Progressive HackNight event, we (the organizers) want you to be empowered to talk to us about it.
The Organizers
Ilona Brand
she/her
ilona (at) progressivehacknight.org | @ibrand
La Vesha Parker
she/her
vesha (at) progressivehacknight.org | @vesha
Rapi Castillo
he/him
rapi (at) progressivehacknight.org | @rapi
Annie Hirshman
she/her
annie (at) progressivehacknight.org | @anniehirshman
Sonya Reynolds
she/her/hers
sonya (at) progressivehacknight.org | @sonyabear
Tino Bedi
He/him
tino (at) progressivehacknight.org | @tino
Julian Rad
he/him
julian (at) progressivehacknight.org | @julianrad
Alex Burgos
he/him
alex (at) progressivehacknight.org
1 The social rules are excerpts from the original social rules from the Recurse Center, where they help nurture a productive learning environment. The Recurse Center wrote an awesome blog post explaining their social rules, and we will be sure to announce these rules at the start of every HackNight.
About the author
Ilona Brand
Ilona is a member of the progressivehacknight Steering Committee