Code of Conduct

Preamble

A code of conduct establishes [minimum] expectations for behavior for our HOLLYFY participants. Adopting, and enforcing, a code of conduct can help create a positive social atmosphere for our community.

HOLLYFY exists to empower the next generation of collaborators to find and form the teams they love. In order to do so, we must create a mutually respectful environment to facilitate relationship building and idea sharing.

Scope

When and how to use these guidelines.

• Working with HOLLYFY teams and on projects

• Representing HOLLYFY at public events

• Collaborating with other HOLLYFY community members to team, create, problem-solve, learn/teach, and grow

• Interacting with HOLLYFY and other community members on social media or in person

• Participating in HOLLYFY related forums, mailing lists, wikis, websites, chat channels (incl. Slack), bugs, group or person-to-person meetings, and HOLLYFY related correspondence.

Our community consists of:

• Specialists, team leads, within the HOLLYFY ecosystem

• HOLLYFY employees, board members, and contractors

• Clients with projects on the HOLLYFY platform

• Third-party partners, vendors, and sponsors

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Our Standards

HOLLYFY is an Equal Opportunity organization, which is dedicated to providing a positive experience for everyone, regardless of:

• Age

• Background

• Caste

• Ethnicity and/or race

• Family status

• Gender

• Gender identity or expression

• Geographic location

• Marital / relationship status

• Nationality

• Native language

• Physical appearance

• Place of birth

• Religion or lack thereof

• Sexual orientation

• Socio-economic status

Openness, collaboration, and participation are core aspects of our work. We gain strength from discourse and actively seek participation from those who enhance it. These guidelines exist to enable diversity of thought and encourage various groups to interact and collaborate to enhance our mutual goals.

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Expected Behavior

This code of conduct presents a summary of the shared values and “common sense” thinking for our community. The basic social ingredients and actions that hold us together are:

Be Considerate

Your actions and work will affect and be used by other people and you, in turn, will depend on the work and actions of others. Any decision you take will affect other community members, and we expect you to take those consequences into account when making decisions.

Be Respectful

Value each other’s ideas, styles, and viewpoints. We may not always agree, but disagreement is no excuse for poor manners. Be open to different possibilities and to be wrong. Be respectful in all interactions and communications, especially when debating the merits of different options. Be aware of your impact and how intense interactions may be affecting people. Be direct, constructive and positive. Speak up. Take responsibility for your impact and your mistakes – if someone says they have been harmed through your words or actions, listen carefully, apologize sincerely, and correct the behavior going forward.

Be Nice

Please be courteous, respectful, and polite to fellow community members. We all want to enjoy being a part of a community that is kind to one another. Support each other and yourselves whenever possible.

Be Collaborative

The HOLLYFY platform depends on collaboration: finding and forming partnerships that challenge each other, learn from one another, solve complex problems together, and achieve success is why we are here.

As a contributor, you should aim to collaborate with other community members, as well as other communities that are interested in or depend on the work you do. Your work should be high-quality, considerate, and delivered in a timely manner.

Accommodate Our Similarities and Differences

Community members come from many cultures and backgrounds. Cultural differences can encompass everything from official religious observances to personal habits to political beliefs to clothing. Be respectful of people with different cultural practices, attitudes, ideas and beliefs. Work to eliminate your own biases, prejudices and discriminatory practices. Think of others’ needs from their point of view. Use an appropriate tone of voice. Respect people’s right to privacy and confidentiality. Be open to learning from and educating others as well as educating yourself; it is unrealistic to expect community Members to know the cultural practices of various ethnic, political, religious and cultural groups, but everyone needs to recognize one’s native culture is only part of positive interactions.

Ask For Help When Unsure

Nobody is expected to be perfect in this community. Asking questions early avoids many problems later, so questions are encouraged, though they may be directed to the appropriate forum. Those who are asked should be responsive and helpful.

Support Diversity of Thought

HOLLYFY values diverse ideas. If you are a critical thinker this should be easy.

• Acknowledge that the lived experiences of other people are valid. We acknowledge that each community member will experience the world differently, based on their past experiences, background and identity. We encourage you to bring your experiences to community conversations, while being open to learning about other people’s different lived experiences.

• Listen to other people, try to respect differing opinions. We encourage community members to be curious about different lived experiences. If a community member does not want to discuss a certain topic with you, please respect their wishes. Reasonable communication of topic boundaries is not against the Code of Conduct.

• Be open to critical thinking. It’s important that our community talk about how to become more understanding. If you see behavior that is discriminatory, we encourage you to report it to the Code of Conduct committee. We also recognize that community members may choose to privately or publicly critique behavior that negatively impacts other people in our community. It is not against the Code of Conduct to provide such a critique.

• Avoid critiquing people’s tone when they talk about discrimination. Talking about discrimination and different lived experiences can be difficult. Seeing biased or discriminatory statements can bring up past negative experiences for people in our community. These negative experiences often bring up strong emotions, which may lead to the person communicating in a more blunt tone. We encourage community members to acknowledge others’ experiences with discrimination, rather than critiquing the tone that people use to communicate about that discrimination.

• Understand that embracing vibrant discourse takes time, energy, and resources. HOLLYFY acknowledges that discrimination, harassment, unconscious bias, and differing opinions exist. Because of this, people from various groups in our community may have less access to resources or opportunities.

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Behavior That Will Not Be Tolerated

Everyone who interacts with HOLLYFY and the community should be better off because of it and have the best possible experience they can. In order to be clear what that means, we’ve provided a list of examples of behaviors that are inappropriate for community spaces.

Deliberate or Careless Intimidation, Stalking, or Following

Either online or in-person, unwelcome monitoring of people, their companies, work, or social accounts is inappropriate.

Violence and Threats of Violence

Violence and threats of violence are not acceptable – online or offline. This includes incitement of violence toward any individual, including encouraging a person to commit self-harm. This also includes posting or threatening to post other people’s personally identifying information (“doxxing”) online.

Sustained disruption of online discussion, talks, or other events

Sustained disruption of events, online discussions, or meetings, including talks and presentations, will not be tolerated. This includes, spamming email or chat channels, ‘Talking over’ or ‘heckling’ event speakers or influencing crowd actions that cause hostility in event sessions. Sustained disruption also includes drinking alcohol to excess or using recreational drugs to excess, or pushing others to do so.

Harassment of people who don’t drink alcohol

We do not tolerate derogatory comments about those who abstain from alcohol or other substances. We do not tolerate pushing people to drink, talking about their abstinence or preferences to others, or pressuring them to drink – physically or through jeering.

Sexist, racist, homophobic, derogatory language or otherwise exclusionary tactics

This includes deliberately degrading someone because of their beliefs, and/or questioning the legitimacy of an individual’s intent. If you’re unsure if a word is derogatory, don’t use it. This also includes repeated subtle and/or indirect discrimination.

Unwelcome sexual attention or behavior that contributes to a sexualized environment

This includes sexualized comments, jokes or imagery in interactions, communications or presentation materials, as well as inappropriate touching, groping, or sexual advances. Community members should not use sexualized images, activities, or other material.

Unwelcome physical contact

This includes touching a person without permission, including sensitive areas such as their hair, pregnant stomach, mobility device (wheelchair, scooter, etc) or tattoos. This also includes physically blocking or intimidating another person. Physical contact or simulated physical contact (such as emojis like “kiss”) without affirmative consent is not acceptable. This includes sharing or distribution of sexualized images or text.

Influencing or encouraging inappropriate behavior

If you influence or encourage another person to violate the Code of Conduct, you may face the same consequences as if you had violated the Code of Conduct.

Participants asked to stop any inappropriate behavior are expected to comply immediately. If you are the subject of an incident report or if you wish to report inappropriate behavior, your personal data will be processed by HOLLYFY as set forth in the Incident Response Plan. You consent to such processing.

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Confidentiality

You may receive certain confidential or proprietary technical and business information and materials from other community members, HOLLYFY employees, or HOLLYFY Clients, including without limitation Preliminary Works (“Confidential Information”). By joining the community, you agree that you will hold and maintain in strict confidence all confidential information from other parties and of HOLLYFY Clients, will not disclose such confidential information to any third party, and will not use any confidential information of the other parties or of HOLLYFY Clients except as may be necessary. Confidential information shall not include any information that is in the public domain or becomes publicly known through no fault of the receiving party, or is otherwise properly received from a third party without an obligation of confidentiality.

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Reporting a Code of Conduct Incident

We encourage community members to make a Code of Conduct incident report to the HOLLYFY Code of Conduct committee by emailing report@hollyfy.com. This is a retaliation and punishment-free report.

Participation

Abiding by this code of conduct is non-negotiable.  Failure to abide by this code of conduct could, without limitation, result in any one, or multiple, of the following outcomes: [a written warning, being placed on a probationary performance review plan, suspension, disinvitation, removal or banning] from the community.

Modifications to these guidelines

HOLLYFY may amend the guidelines from time-to-time and may also vary the procedures it sets out where appropriate in a particular case. Your agreement to comply with the guidelines will be deemed agreement to any changes to it.

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