[Federation Name]: Code of Conduct

Status: Provisional draft. This Code of Conduct is provided so the bylaws and membership criteria have something to reference and so Member Groups can affirm a real document at founding. This draft is starting-point material for the founding membership to revise before final ratification. Argue with it.

Adapted from the Citizen Code of Conduct (Stumpsyn Labs, CC BY 3.0) and the Conference Code of Conduct (Geek Feminism community), with modifications specific to the Federation’s federation-of-equals structure and international scope.

1. Purpose

The Federation is built around member groups doing local organizing work. Local atproto communities are at their best when organizers and participants treat each other with care, when disagreements stay productive, and when people from different backgrounds can show up and contribute without facing harassment, exclusion, or coercion.

This Code applies to:

• Federation-level events, meetings, and communications
• Member-group events held under Federation auspices or branding
• Communications conducted in Federation-controlled channels (forum threads, member ballots, working groups, mailing lists)
• Conduct outside Federation channels that materially affects the Federation’s work or its members’ safety

This Code does not displace the codes of conduct that Member Groups maintain for their own events. Member Groups operate their own enforcement processes for their own activities. The Federation Code applies to Federation activities and to Federation-level conduct by Member Group delegates and organizers.

2. Expected behavior

The following are expected of everyone participating in Federation spaces:

• Treat other participants with respect, including across disagreement
• Listen when others speak, and make space for voices that haven’t yet been heard
• Take responsibility for your own words and actions
• Assume good faith from others; ask for clarification before assuming the worst
• Respect the time, energy, and emotional labor of organizers, especially those who hold marginalized identities
• Honor the diversity of the Federation’s member groups, including different jurisdictions, languages, cultures, and organizing traditions
• Use the Federation’s name and resources for purposes consistent with its mission

3. Prohibited conduct

The following are not acceptable in Federation spaces:

• Harassment of any kind, including but not limited to: offensive comments related to race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, immigration status, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, disability, neurodivergence, mental health, physical appearance, body size, age, or socioeconomic status
• Sexual attention, contact, or imagery that is unwelcome
• Threats of violence, incitement of violence, or stalking
• Doxxing (publishing private information about a person without their consent)
• Sustained disruption of meetings, votes, or working sessions
• Deliberate misrepresentation of the Federation’s positions, finances, or decisions
• Retaliation against anyone who reports a Code of Conduct violation in good faith
• Conduct intended to coerce, manipulate, or exploit other participants, including organizers, attendees, and newcomers
• Use of Federation channels to solicit, recruit, or organize for purposes the Federation has not sanctioned
• Any conduct that would expose the Federation, its Member Groups, or their participants to material legal or physical risk

4. Special considerations for an international, multilingual federation

Member Groups operate in different jurisdictions, languages, and cultural contexts. Different communities have different norms about directness, formality, public criticism, and conflict resolution. The Federation honors this variety and asks participants to do the same.

In practice this means:

• Participants should not assume Anglo-American conversational norms are universal
• Conduct that is normal in one jurisdiction may be harmful in another; the standard is the impact on the affected party, not the intent of the actor
• Member Groups in non-Anglophone regions may apply an equivalent code that reflects their local context, as contemplated in the Bylaws. Equivalent codes must address the same categories of prohibited conduct but may use locally appropriate language and enforcement mechanisms
• Translation accommodations are available for reporting and for participation in any Code-related process; see Section 7

5. Reporting

If you experience or witness conduct that violates this Code, you can report it through any of the following:

• Federation Code of Conduct Committee (CoC Committee): [coc@federation.example] (placeholder; the Committee’s contact information will be published before ratification)
• Any Federation Director with whom you feel safe communicating
• The Federation Secretary or any officer
• Your Member Group’s organizing committee, who may escalate to the Federation on your behalf

Reports may be made by the affected party, by a witness, or by a third party with relevant information. Reports may be made anonymously, though anonymous reports may limit the Federation’s ability to investigate.

The Federation does not require reporters to confront the person whose conduct they are reporting. The Federation does not require reporters to handle the situation themselves before reporting.

6. Response process

When the Federation receives a report:

1. Acknowledgment within 72 hours, confirming receipt and identifying the person handling the report
2. Initial assessment by the CoC Committee (or, if the Committee has a conflict of interest, by Directors recused from any conflict) to determine whether the conduct falls within the Code’s scope and what response is appropriate
3. Investigation if needed, which may include conversations with the reporter, the person whose conduct is reported, witnesses, and any others with relevant information
4. Decision and action by the CoC Committee, with the option to escalate to the full Board or to the membership for matters involving Directors, officers, or repeated or severe conduct
5. Communication to the reporter (and, where appropriate, to the person whose conduct was reported) about the outcome

The Federation may take any of the following actions in response to a violation:

• Private conversation and a request to change the conduct
• Written warning
• Required apology or restitution
• Temporary suspension from Federation channels, events, or governance roles
• Permanent removal from Federation channels, events, or governance roles
• Suspension or removal of a Member Group (subject to Bylaws Section 3.8)
• Removal of a Director (subject to Bylaws Section 5.6)
• Referral to law enforcement, where the conduct involves credible threats of violence or other criminal activity

Severity of response shall be proportional to the conduct, with consideration of: impact on affected parties, intent and awareness of the person whose conduct is reported, pattern (single incident vs. repeated), responsiveness to feedback, and the safety of the Federation’s community.

The CoC Committee is not a substitute for civil or criminal legal processes. Reporters retain all rights to pursue other remedies in addition to or instead of a Federation process.

7. Translation and accessibility

Reports may be submitted in any language. The Federation commits to providing translation for any Code-related process. If a reporter, respondent, or witness needs translation, language support, or other accessibility accommodations to participate, the Federation will provide them.

This Code itself shall be translated into the working languages of all Member Group regions, on the same schedule as other governance materials. The Federation’s translation budget covers this.

8. Conflicts of interest

If a Director, officer, or CoC Committee member has a conflict of interest (personal relationship with the reporter, the respondent, or the affected community), they shall recuse themselves from the matter. The remaining Directors or Committee members shall handle the matter, including by appointing a temporary replacement if necessary to maintain quorum.

If a report concerns the conduct of a CoC Committee member, the Board shall handle the matter directly. If a report concerns the conduct of a Director, the membership may be involved in any decision to remove the Director.

9. Confidentiality

The Federation treats reports as confidential to the extent practical given the need to investigate and respond. The reporter’s identity is not shared with the respondent without the reporter’s consent, unless required by law or unless withholding the identity would prevent a fair process and the reporter declines to proceed on a fair-process basis.

The Federation will not publish details of individual reports or responses except where:

• Required by law
• Necessary to warn the community of ongoing safety concerns
• The affected party explicitly requests publication
• The conduct and response are matters of legitimate Federation governance (e.g., a vote to remove a Director, which is a governance act)

Aggregate, anonymized statistics about reports and responses may be included in annual Federation reports.

10. Equivalent codes for Member Groups

Member Groups may operate under their own codes of conduct for their own activities. A Member Group’s code must:

• Address the categories of prohibited conduct in Section 3 of this Code (or local equivalents)
• Identify a clear reporting path for community members
• Identify enforcement responsibilities
• Be published and accessible to the Member Group’s participants

The Federation does not require Member Group codes to be in English or to match this Code word-for-word. Member Groups operating in non-Anglophone or non-Anglo-American contexts may apply equivalent local norms. The bylaws’ “or equivalent code” language exists for this purpose.

11. Updates to this Code

This Code may be updated by majority vote of the Member Groups. Substantive changes shall be circulated for member discussion at least thirty (30) days before a vote. The CoC Committee may propose updates based on its operational experience.

This is a living document. The first revision is expected within the Federation’s first year of operations, after the CoC Committee has handled real reports and identified where the Code needs strengthening or clarification.

12. Attribution and license

This Code adapts material from:

• Citizen Code of Conduct (Stumpsyn Labs), licensed under CC BY 3.0: https://github.com/stumpsyn/policies/blob/master/citizen_code_of_conduct.md
• Conference anti-harassment policy (Geek Feminism community): https://geekfeminism.fandom.com/wiki/Conference_anti-harassment/Policy
• Contributor Covenant (Coraline Ada Ehmke and contributors): https://www.contributor-covenant.org/

This Code is published under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA 4.0). Member Groups and other organizations may adopt, adapt, and distribute it under the same terms.

What is still missing from this draft

The founding members should expect to revise this Code before ratification. Items flagged as needing member input:

1. CoC Committee composition. This Code references a Code of Conduct Committee. The Bylaws do not yet specify how that Committee is constituted, how long members serve, and how vacancies are filled. The membership should decide whether the Committee is appointed by the Board, elected by the membership, or constituted some other way, and whether Committee membership should include people from outside the Member Group delegate pool.

2. Concrete contact information. The placeholder email address needs to be replaced with a real, monitored address before this Code can be relied on.

3. Specific timeline commitments. “72 hours acknowledgment” is a starting position; the membership may want different timelines for different severity levels.

4. Appeals process. This draft does not include an appeals process for decisions by the CoC Committee. Some federations have one; others rely on the Board or membership for review. The founding members should decide.

5. Restorative-justice options. Some communities prefer restorative-justice approaches to traditional disciplinary responses. The current draft is silent on this; member input is invited.

6. Documentation retention. How long does the Federation retain records of reports and responses? Practice varies; the membership should set this.

These are not gaps that should delay adoption indefinitely. A reasonable path is to adopt this Code provisionally at incorporation, with the explicit expectation that the first revision will fill the gaps within the first year.