Code of Conduct

The organizers of useR! 2022 are dedicated to providing a safe and inclusive conference experience for everyone regardless of age, gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, race, or religion (or lack thereof).

All participants (including organizers, attendees, presenters, sponsors, and volunteers) at useR! 2022 are required to agree to the following code of conduct. Reports of violation to this Code of Conduct should be addressed to useR2022 [at] vumc.org.

The code of conduct applies to all conference activities including talks, panels, workshops, and social events. It extends to conference-specific exchanges on social media, for instance, posts tagged with the identifier of the conference (e.g. #useR2022 on Twitter), replies to such posts, and replies to official social media accounts (e.g. @_useRconf on Twitter).

Organizers will enforce this code throughout and expect cooperation in ensuring a safe environment for all.

Expected Behaviour

All conference participants agree to:

Unacceptable Behavior

Behavior that is unacceptable includes, but is not limited to:

  • Stalking, e.g. persistent unwanted direct messages, sending unwanted pictures or malware links, logging online activity for harassment purposes.
  • Deliberate intimidation.
  • Sharing private conversations and discussions (e.g., screenshots of discussion channels, direct messages, etc), without consent.
  • Sustained or willful disruption of talks or other conference activities, including online discussion.
  • Use of sexual or discriminatory imagery, comments, or jokes.
  • Offensive comments related to age, gender, sexual orientation, disability, race, religion, nationality, or native language.
  • Inappropriate simulated physical contact, e.g. textual descriptions like “hug” or “backrub” or emoji representing such contact, used without consent.
  • Unwelcome sexual attention, which can include inappropriate questions of a sexual nature, asking for sexual favors, or repeatedly asking for dates or contact information.

If you are asked to stop unacceptable behavior you should stop immediately, even if your behavior was meant to be friendly or a joke.

Attendees who behave in an inappropriate manner are subject to actions listed under Responses to Code of Conduct Violations.

Additional Requirements for Conference Contributions

Presentations should not contain offensive or sexualised material. If this material is impossible to avoid given the topic (for example text mining of material from hate sites), the existence of this material should be noted in the abstract and, in the case of oral contributions, at the start of the talk or session.

Additional Requirements for Sponsors and Social Events Contractors

Sponsors and social event contractors should not use sexualised images, activities, or other material. They should not use sexualised clothing/uniforms/costumes, or otherwise create a sexualised environment. In case of violations, sanctions may be applied, without the return of sponsorship contribution.

Responses to Code of Conduct Violations

The Code of Conduct response team reserves the right to determine the appropriate response for all code of conduct violations. Potential responses include:

  • ban or mute from the conference spaces in order to stop the inappropriate behavior;
  • a formal warning to stop the harassing behavior;
  • expulsion from the conference;
  • removal of sponsor displays or conference presentations, or
  • cancellation or early termination of talks or other contributions to the program.

Refunds may not be given in case of expulsion.

What To Do If You Witness or Are Subject To Unacceptable Behavior

Alert the Organizing Committee if you notice someone in distress, or observe violations of this code of conduct, even if they seem inconsequential.

Reports should be addressed to useR2022 [at] vumc.org. If the report concerns someone from the Organizing Committee, that member and everyone that would enter a conflict of interest will recuse themselves. If you still have concerns about a conflict of interest, you are welcome to contact the R Foundation Conference Committee under R-conferences [at] r-project.org.

We will take all reports by useR! 2022 participants seriously. This includes incidents outside our spaces and at any point in time. The useR! 2022 organizing committee reserves the right to exclude people from useR! 2022 based on their past behavior, including behavior outside useR! 2022 spaces and behavior towards people who are not part of useR! 2022.

We will respect confidentiality requests for the purpose of protecting targets of harassing behavior. We will not name victims without their affirmative consent. Correspondence is handled confidentially and deleted after the case is resolved. All data is stored securely, access will be limited to the members of the Organizing Committee who take the case.

Conference staff will also provide support to victims, including, but not limited to:

  • Briefing key event staff to provide appropriate assistance
  • Other assistance to ensure victims feel safe for the duration of the conference

Assistance will only be provided with affirmative consent of the victim.

Acknowledgements

Parts of the above text are licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Credit to SRCCON. This code of conduct was based on that developed for useR! 2018 which was a revision of the code of conduct used at previous useR!s and also drew from rOpenSci’s code of conduct.