My letter to Raymond Hightower
Raymond Hightower is described on his website as "a software developer, founder of WisdomGroup, organizer of ChicagoRuby, and producer of WindyCityRails & RubyCaribe." He tweets as @rayhightower. Since about January of this year, many people have been trying to get him to address the poor quality of the code of conduct governing his events, which is the same as the code of conduct I wrote about a few months ago.
[ SECOND UPDATE: The code of conduct has been updated! It is much improved! Read about it at http://rayhightower.com/blog/2014/05/28/an-environment-of-respect-3rd-iteration/ ]
Today I sent him a message via the contact form on his website.
Hi. I've been doing some work with Meetup groups in Chicago to institute codes of conduct to help protect their members and organizers and I'd really like to talk to you about it, and how it's related to the code of conduct for some of the events you organize. I was galvanized to start working on this by an extended campaign of harassment was directed at a speaker following a talk she gave, that I attended. The aggressor in this situation was listed as a member of several meetup groups that I myself belong to and it made me no longer feel safe in the Chicago tech scene. I wanted to continue participating in the Chicago tech community so I thought about what would help me feel safe going to meetups again. I did some research about codes of conduct and determined to help meetups adopt or improve codes of conduct. Quite a few meetups have already participated. Some of the meetups that were new to adoping codes of conduct used as their template a code of conduct that appears to be common in the Ruby community. It's the one used by Ancient City Ruby, Windy City Rails, and Chicago Ruby. Well-meaning organizers who wanted to adopt a code of conduct to protect themselves and their members presented it to me and said, "Is this like what you had in mind?" It was not actually very much like what I had in mind, and I wrote up my concerns about it here: http://robotjane.tumblr.com/post/84053408556/benefit-of-the-doubt-or-things-that-dont-belong-in and then suggested that they use something like http://confcodeofconduct.com/ or http://opensourcebridge.org/about/code-of-conduct/ as their model instead. I also advised adding specific language prohibiting members of the meetup from using social media to harass other meetup members outside of an event venue, since we had a problem with that specific type of behavior. I think there would be a huge benefit to the tech community, and not only the Ruby corners of it, of improving the codes of conduct for groups/events like Windy City Rails and Chicago Ruby. Not only are the organizers and attendees of those events not very well protected by the current code of conduct, but many other groups are looking to these events as examples. As someone whose safety and ability to participate in the Chicago tech community depends on good, clear, well-enforced codes of conduct, I urge you to engage with the concerns that have been brought up by knowledgeable, helpful people like Julie* and Coraline** as well as myself. Thanks. robotjane
* https://twitter.com/juliepagano
** https://twitter.com/Bantik
UPDATE: He replied to me asking for more info about the Refactor::Chicago incident. Since I was basically a bystander I don't feel it's my story to tell, beyond how it affected me personally. I also don't want to increase stress on the person who was targeted for harassment. I told him to direct any further questions about the event to the meetup organizer, Eric. As far as I can tell, Eric handled the incident as well as anyone could: the aggressor was banned from the group and an code of conduct was put in place. If anyone else has questions about what happened, talk to Eric via the Meetup.com page for Refactor::Chicago. I will not be providing any more details about that incident.
SECOND UPDATE: The code of conduct has been updated! It is much improved! Read about it at http://rayhightower.com/blog/2014/05/28/an-environment-of-respect-3rd-iteration/