Steward Code of Conduct
Ported from the original document on Feb. 9, 2025.
Our Pledge
We as members, contributors, and leaders pledge to make participation in our community a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of age, body size, visible or invisible disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, gender identity and expression, level of experience, education, socio-economic status, nationality, personal appearance, race, caste, color, religion, sexual identity and orientation, any other born or inherent characteristics.
We pledge to act and interact in ways that contribute to an open, welcoming, diverse, inclusive, and healthy community.
Scope
The Steward Code of Conduct applies within all League governance spaces, and also applies when an individual is officially representing the community in public spaces. Examples of representing our community include communications in open League infrastructure (including but not limited to Coordination, Consensus, and Broadcast), and in publicly visible conversations relating to matters of League governance. Behaviour outside of League governance is covered by the League Community Code, not this document.
Our Standards
Examples of behavior that contributes to a positive environment for our community include:
- Demonstrating empathy and kindness toward other people.
- Being respectful of differing opinions, viewpoints, and experiences.
- Giving and gracefully accepting constructive feedback.
- Accepting responsibility and apologizing to those affected by our mistakes, and learning from the experience.
- Assume good faith in evaluating reasonable critique, unless that assumption is proven to be unwarranted.
- Focusing on what is best not just for us as individuals, but for the overall community.
- Responding in a timely and just fashion to reports of bad conduct, in order to ensure our compliance with these standards.
Examples of unacceptable behavior include:
- The use of sexualized language or imagery, and sexual attention or advances of any kind.
- The use of any language commonly considered to be derogatory toward any member of the aforementioned minority groups, including slurs and stereotyping.
- Trolling, insulting or derogatory comments, and personal attacks of any kind, directed at anyone.
- Public or private harassment.
- Publishing others' private information, such as a physical or email address, without their explicit permission.
- Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional setting.
- Conduct which violates the consent or boundaries of others.
- Serious violations of the League Community Code.
- Extraordinarily egregious conduct inside or outside the League that is prima facie incompatible with a Steward’s continued collaboration with other Stewards, their ability to deal with other League users, or their ability to perform their responsibilities as a Steward in a fair and just fashion. (This is the broken stair clause.)
These standards apply to any use of League centralized governance communications infrastructure, and to publicly accessible words and actions related to League governance concerns. Publicly accessible, in this case, means in avenues that may be viewed by any given person without permission or prior notice, and with or without login in venues that allow account approval for the general public.
Enforcement Responsibilities
The Conduct Working Group is a body of Stewards who have demonstrated the ability to approach and resolve conflict in a professional fashion, without lashing out or acting in anger. Approval of members of the Conduct Working Group is by consensus vote of active Stewards, given the responsibility placed upon them. The CWG must consist of 3 or more Stewards, preferably an odd number; in the event of a tie due to an unfilled position or recusal, decision responsibility will fall to the Stewards as a whole, excluding any directly involved parties.
The Stewards as a whole, and the Conduct Working Group in specific, are responsible for clarifying and enforcing our standards of acceptable behavior and will take appropriate and fair corrective action in response to any behavior that they deem inappropriate, threatening, offensive, or harmful.
The Stewards and Conduct Working Group have the right and responsibility to remove, edit, or reject comments, commits, code, wiki edits, issues, and other contributions that are not aligned to the Steward Code of Conduct, and will communicate reasons for moderation decisions when appropriate.
As with the League Community Code, this document is to be interpreted by the rules laid out in the League Interpretation Code. To stress, this includes interpreting it based on the following, in descending order of priority:
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The spirit of its contents and the underlying values which produced said contents, considered in light of how those values and that spirit have evolved during the League’s existence.
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Avoiding blatantly unreasonable conclusions and outcomes.
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The plain and ordinary meaning of the text of the Referring Document, in light of the differing backgrounds from which its drafters and editors have come and not in a manner which enables pedantry, obfuscation, or obstructionism.
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The above bases of interpretation as applied to all other Binding Documents to the extent that such is necessary to unambiguously interpret this document.
Enforcement
Instances of abusive, harassing, or otherwise unacceptable behavior may be reported to the Conduct Working Group responsible for enforcement at conduct@websiteleague.org. All complaints will be reviewed and investigated promptly and fairly.
All community leaders are obligated to respect the privacy and security of the reporter of any incident. Discussion of a report is to be conducted in a limited-access Coordination channel.
Members of the Conduct Working Group must ensure they investigate reports with the goal of ensuring that League collaborative spaces remain a safe and healthy environment. Any investigation must be conducted with a goal of conflict resolution and mutual understanding, and approached with as much kindness and respect toward all involved parties as possible, except in the case of clear and obvious malice.
Any member of the Conduct Working Group who finds they cannot maintain a calm and levelheaded approach must recuse themselves from the case at hand. Members of the Conduct Working Group may force a recusal of another party via a simple majority vote.
Anyone in the Conduct Working Group involved in a conflict under investigation, or with close personal ties to parties in a conduct under investigation that may affect their impartiality, must recuse themselves. In the event a conflict involves a majority of the Conduct Working Group, responsibility falls upon the body of active Stewards as a whole.
The Stewards as a whole are to make the best effort possible in appointing minorities to the CWG. In the event that a conflict involves a minority issue where no members of the Conduct Working Group are a member of that minority, the Conduct Working Group must seek outside advice.
Enforcement Guidelines
Community leaders will follow these Community Impact Guidelines in determining the consequences for any action they deem in violation of the Steward Code of Conduct:
1. Correction
Community Impact: Use of inappropriate language or other behavior deemed unprofessional or unwelcome in the community.
Consequence: A private, written warning from the Conduct Working Group, providing clarity around the nature of the violation and an explanation of why the behavior was inappropriate. A public apology may be requested. In the event of a conflict within the body of Stewards, involved parties may be requested to take part in a mediation or conflict resolution procedure.
2. Warning
Community Impact: A violation through a single incident or series of actions.
Consequence: A warning with consequences for continued behavior. No interaction with the people involved, including unsolicited interaction with those enforcing the Steward Code of Conduct, for a specified period of time. This includes avoiding interactions in community spaces as well as external channels like social media. Violating these terms may lead to a temporary or permanent ban.
3. Cooling-off period
Community impact: A single incident or series of incidents that show that a Steward is either under extreme stress, or is suffering extreme stress due to their role as a Steward, in a way that impacts their own or others' ability to healthily and productively accomplish their work as a Steward.
Consequence: An enforced break from the responsibilities of Stewardship. This should be utilized in cases where someone has demonstrated a track record of useful work, but whose condition has changed in such a way as to be unhealthy for them or others should their participation continue in that fashion. The Steward is placed on the roll of inactive Stewards for a period ranging from days to months, at CWG discretion, and is expected to adhere to this. In the event the Steward in question has assumed responsibility for a critical task or role, they must make this clear and that responsibility must be passed to others for the duration.
This must be approved by a two-thirds vote from the body of active Stewards.
Call it an enforced vacation.
4. Dismissal from Stewardship
Community Impact: An egregious incident or a pattern of behavior which demonstrates an inability or unwillingness to productively and calmly resolve interpersonal conflict in their role as a Steward, or which interferes with the ability of the Stewards to run the Website League in a healthy and productive fashion.
Consequence: The steward is removed from League stewardship, without prejudice; if they wish to rejoin the Stewards in the future, the ordinary Stewardship nomination and vote process applies. The responsibilities of the removed Steward must be assigned to other Stewards.
This must be approved by a two-thirds vote from the body of active Stewards.
5. Temporary Ban
Community Impact: A serious violation of community standards, including sustained inappropriate behavior.
Consequence: A temporary ban from any sort of interaction or public communication with the community for a specified period of time. No public or private interaction with the people involved, including unsolicited interaction with those enforcing the Steward Code of Conduct, is allowed during this period. Violating these terms may lead to a permanent ban.
This may be applied as an emergency measure to halt extreme and obvious misbehavior while the Conduct Working Group (or other responsible group) conducts an investigation.
6. Permanent Ban
Community Impact: Demonstrating a pattern of violation of community standards, including sustained inappropriate behavior, harassment of an individual, or aggression toward or disparagement of minority groups and members of same.
Consequence: A permanent ban from any sort of public interaction with League governance, including all infrastructure. This may also be accompanied by a League-wide ban, as implemented by individual site staff. This must be approved by consensus vote of active Stewards.
Attribution
This Code of Conduct is a modified version of the Contributor Covenant, version 2.1, available at https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/2/1/code_of_conduct.html.
Community Impact Guidelines were inspired by Mozilla's code of conduct enforcement ladder.
For answers to common questions about this code of conduct, see the FAQ at https://www.contributor-covenant.org/faq. Translations are available at https://www.contributor-covenant.org/translations.
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