This year, the DjangoCon Europe 2022 Code of Conduct Active Response Team (CARE) had a very uneventful conference. We are nonetheless publishing a full Code of Conduct transparency report.
Publishing this report is a part of our Code of Conduct process, which informs our work before, during, and after the conference. The report itself provides information about general team tasks, as well as incidents we handled.
The DjangoCon Europe Code of Conduct (CoC) and the workings of the CARE team are directly taken from past events. For this year, the team was set up by the event organisers and staffed with five volunteers:
Our group handled everything CoC-related for the conference, with support from the organisers where needed, in particular Miguel Magalhães. All CoC reports are handled solely by the team, with an important policy that all decisions are made as a group whenever possible. Thibaud was available in person at the conference, while other team members were in attendance online.
It’s worth mentioning the team is fully separate from the Django Software Foundation’s Code of Conduct Committee, which handles violations with Django’s Code of Conduct. This separate code of conduct also applies to all DSF events, including DjangoCon Europe.
Our team had two major tasks before the conference.
This generally meant doing anything we could ahead of the actual conference so our team could work as well as possible during the event.
All speakers were required to submit a draft version of their slides, ideally in the week before the conference, as far complete as possible. The CARE team went through the slides much later than ideal, with only 20 out of 45 talks reviewed in time. This was largely because our team started this process too late, with the additional problem that a majority of speakers hadn’t provided their slides when prompted or had done so without ensuring the slides were publicly-accessible.
Due to the rushed turnaround, the majority of reviewed talks were only checked by one CARE team member, which is also not ideal. We didn’t review lightning talks, as they were scheduled on the day of the event, often on very short notice, without the CARE team being involved in the process.
Of the 21 presentations we attempted to review,
In addition, two speakers reached out to clarify the application of the code of conduct to specific aspects of their talks. We advised in both cases.
Plain and simple, there were no incidents reported during the conference! Everyone involved played a part in fostering an excellent atmosphere throughout – with good Q&As after talks, and attendees supporting one-another in person and on Slack. The conference code of conduct was featured prominently, which helped set clear expectations for everyone.
Our team also had a small representation during the sprints on Saturday and Sunday. This all went very well!
With the conference over, with no incidents reported during the event, our team’s remit was to:
Even without any incidents to report on, we still believe publishing this report is a good way to show why our CoC is important, and how it is enforced in practice, in line with the transparency guidelines from Django’s CoC committee. We hope that by publishing this, we will encourage people to report incidents in the future, and that other conferences can learn from our mistakes and our successes.
We welcome any feedback, and we would like to thank the DjangoCon Europe community – attendees, speakers, and organisers alike – for working with us.
We thank the organisers of DjangoCon Europe 2021 for their transparency report, which we followed as a template for this year’s report.
The DjangoCon Europe 2022 Code of Conduct Active Response Ensurers team,
We are happy to announce DjangoCon Europe 2022 will take place in Porto, Portugal 🇵🇹 hopefully! Let us explain, and believe us that there is a lot to explain.
DjangoCon Europe is hosted annually by an independent volunteer team. This volunteer team submits a proposal to DSF, which will then select the most suitable one from all the proposals. We knew from the start it would be daunting for a new team to submit for 2022, in these uncertain times. So, we pledged our availability to host another DjangoCon, but only if there was no other team submitting a proposal.
Do not get us wrong, we love the idea of welcoming you all in our city and country, we have been trying for the last two years, but we felt we should give other teams the chance, so we have not submitted an official proposal, just a backup plan, most of all we didn’t want to spend a year without a DjangoCon Europe.
Being here means no other team was available, understandingly so. Our main advantage is: having organised the previous two editions we are able to quickly set up keeping up the momentum.
We will try for the third time to host an in-person event, but a safe one. This means it will be hybrid from the start, both for speakers and participants. We want to give freedom of choice as well as being prepared for unforeseeable issues, which seem to be the new normal. Please keep in mind this might change in a heartbeat and we might end up with yet another online-only event, but let us hope for a bit more.
On another note, you might have noticed the unusual dates for DjangoCon Europe, which usually takes place during the first half of the year. DSF tried to find a new team to host, but due to the lack of viable proposals eventually contacted us in mid-November. Finding a suitable date on such short notice, avoiding other events, and booking a venue left us with little to no choices. To this end, we would like to thank both DEFNA and DSF for the exceptional permission as it will be unusually close to DjangoCon US.
So, DjangoCon Europe 2022 is back again and it’s going to be 5 full days of talks, tutorials and sprints - from September 21 to 25:
In the near future, we will have more info about the conference, which we will publish on the website. This will include more details about the tickets, talks, workshops, grants, code of conduct, etc. For now, here is a summary of that info.
As with past years, there will be a travel grants program to assist people with financial difficulties, people who are under-represented or from marginalised groups - allowing access to an event that otherwise would be very difficult position for them to attend;
If you're interested in sponsoring the event, please get in touch at sponsors@djangocon.eu.
You can already start to prepare your talk, and for that, we recommend that you watch the talk “How To Get On This Stage (And What To Do When You Get There)” by Mark Smith. If you think you have something great to talk about – start to prepare your talk! If you are unsure, talk it over with somebody, or go to Slack to find previous speakers and participants to discuss your idea with. When in doubt, submit your talk!
Volunteers
As you can imagine there is a lot to do, but it's very much worth it – DjangoCon Europe is an extremely friendly, open, inclusive, and informative (for beginners and advanced users alike) conference. Join us regardless of your prior experience: this is also an opportunity to learn! In other words, you don't have to be an expert to join. Below are the teams and their activities/responsibilities that we seek help with:
You can apply through this form here.
Your location before and during the event is not significant, since it will be hosted in a hybrid format. We can do all things that need to be done in Porto ourselves. The only important thing is that you have the energy and free time to help organize a wonderful DjangoCon Europe. The official language of all these prior activities will be English, as well as the conference itself.
We expect new challenges but pledge our hearts and minds to do the best DjangoCon Europe we can, never giving up under these strenuous conditions. Please consider volunteering and join us, we need you!
We hope we'll see you all at DjangoCon Europe 2022, and don't forget to follow us @DjangoConEurope on Twitter, and also join our dedicated Slack channel.
Hoping for the best,
The DjangoCon Europe 2022 Organisers
We will publish event announcements here.
Stay tuned and follow us on Twitter @DjangoConEurope!
