GNU Binutils Code of Conduct Reporting Guide (original) (raw)

NOTE : The Code of Conduct Committee, and the formal reporting and response procedures, are not yet fully established. The below are the currently planned procedures for when the committee is in place.

This is the guide on how to report violations of the GNU Binutils Code of Conduct. If you believe someone is violating the code we ask that you report it to the CoC committee by emailing binutils-conduct@sourceware.org. All reports will be kept confidential to the extent permitted by applicable law. In some cases it may be determined that a public statement will need to be made. If that is the case, the identities of all reporters will remain confidential unless they instruct us otherwise.

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 would much rather have a few extra reports where we decide to take no action, rather than miss a report of an actual violation. We do not look negatively on you for a report made in good faith if we find the incident is not a violation. And knowing about incidents that are not violations, or happen outside our spaces, can also help us to improve the Code of Conduct or the processes surrounding it.

In your report please include:

• Your contact info (so we can get in touch with you if we need to follow up).
• Names (real, nicknames, or pseudonyms) of any individuals involved. If there were other witnesses besides you, please try to include them as well.
• When and where the incident occurred. Please be as specific as possible.
• Your account of what occurred. If there is a publicly available record (e.g. a mailing list archive or a public IRC logger) please include a link.
• Any extra context you believe existed for the incident.
• If you believe this incident is ongoing.
• Any other information you believe we should have.

What happens after you file a report?

You will receive an email from the Code of Conduct Committee acknowledging receipt. We aim to acknowledge receipt within 24 hours (and ideally much sooner than that).

The committee will then meet to review the report, and gather all available information about the incident from the individuals involved and any electronic records.

If this is determined to be an ongoing incident or a threat to physical safety, the committee's immediate priority will be to protect everyone involved. This means we may delay an "official" response until we believe that the situation has ended and that everyone is physically safe.

Once the committee has a complete account of the events they will make a decision as to how to respond. Responses may include:

• Taking no further action (if we determine no violation occurred).
• An offer to mediate between the individual(s) involved.
• A private request or reprimand from the committee to one or more of the individual(s) involved.
• A public request or reprimand.
• An imposed vacation (e.g. asking someone to "take a week off" from a mailing list or IRC).
• A permanent or temporary ban from some or all project spaces (mailing lists, IRC, etc.)

We will respond within one week to the person who filed the report with either a resolution or an explanation of why the situation is not yet resolved.

Once we have determined our final action, we will contact the original reporter to let them know what action (or no action) we will be taking. We will take into account feedback from the reporter on the appropriateness of our response, but we do not guarantee we will act on it.

For more details, please see the Response Guide.

What if your report concerns a possible violation by a committee member?

If your report concerns a current member of the Code of Conduct committee, you may not feel comfortable sending your report to the committee, as all members will see the report.

In that case, you can make a report directly to the current chair of the Code of Conduct committee. Their email address is listed on the Code of Conduct Committee page. The chair will follow the usual enforcement process with the other members, but will exclude the member(s) that the report concerns from any discussion or decision making.

If your report concerns the chair of the committee, please send your report directly to another member.

Reconsideration

Any of the parties directly involved or affected can request reconsideration of the committee's decision. To make such a request, contact a GNU Binutils maintainer with blanket write privileges. Please explain to them your request and motivation and ask them to help you as best they can.

License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

This text was derived from the GCC project Code of Conduct Reporting Guidelines which in turn were derived from the Django project Code of Conduct Reporting Guidelines. and used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license.

Last modified: Tue Oct 03 2023