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Policy regarding CoC Breaches

Version 1.0

Policy regarding Breaches of the Code of Conduct

Article 1. Introduction. Pursuant the Joomla! Code of Conduct (CoC), any individual may submit an incident report to the Board of Directors. The Board of Directors shall analyse the incident and propose recommended sanctions.

Article 2. Purpose of this Policy. This Policy aims to define a standard evaluation method for sanctions and lays out the process to be used  by the Board of Directors.

Article 3. Scope of the Policy. This policy applies to every member of the Corporation and every volunteer of the Project, even if not an active member as defined in Section 4.01 of the Bylaws.

Article 4. Report Processing.

  1. Incident Report is received by the Secretary and shared with the Board of Directors within 24 hours of receipt.
  2. Incident report is shared by the Secretary with reported person and they are given 7 days to submit a response to the Secretary..
  3. Incident Report will be reviewed and discussed at the first Board Meeting after the 7 days have elapsed or a response is received, whichever is sooner. Should the Incident be of a serious matter and requires immediate action, the Board may call a  Special Board Meeting to discuss it.
  4. The Board shall propose sanctions according to Article 5 and 10 of this Policy.
  5. The Board shall notify all involved parties pursuant to Article 11 of this Policy.

Article 5. Proposed sanctions

Occurrence

Sanction

1st offence

Warning to the offender. Apology to offended within 7 days required.  Nature of apology to be determined by the nature of offence. If the offence was committed in public (i.e at an event or publicly on the internet) , a public apology will be required.  If the offence happened in a team or more private setting, an apology to all people who witnessed the offence will be sufficient.*
Should apology be refused by the offender, sanction will be escalated to second offence automatically.

2nd offence

3 month ban

3rd offence

6 month ban

4th offence

12 month ban

5th offence

Lifetime Ban by full member vote

Article 6. Ombudsman Appeal Process:

  1. When sanctions are recommended above a level 1 offence, the reported person will have the opportunity to request an appeal hearing with the Ombudsman.
  2. The hearing will be carried out by the Ombudsman pursuant to Section 4.04(B)(1) of the Bylaws.
  3. Following the hearing, a report will be created by the Ombudsman pursuant to Section 4.04(B)(2) of the Bylaws.
  4. On receipt of the report, the Board will follow the procedure set out in Sections 4.04 (B)(3 to 7) of the Bylaws, and make a full and final decision regarding the report.

Article 7. Terms of a Ban. Pursuant Article 5 of this Policy, the inflicted ban shall be considered as “Full Ban” from the project including, but not limited to, access and privileges to any and all Joomla! Channels, Forums, Websites, Systems, Events, and Activities (including speaking at events, in blog posts and on social media on behalf of Joomla).

Article 8. End of Ban. After the Ban period, the user will be reinstated as a registered user, without any administrative or leadership rights or privileges. The ban will remain on the record of the offender for a period of 18 months from the end of the ban. The ban will then be removed from the offender’s record and levels of recommended sanctions will reset to those of 1st Offence.

Article 9. Removal as Member. In the case of repeated breaches of the Code of Conduct by a member of the Corporation (pursuant Section 4.01 of the Bylaws), the Board of Directors, as a final step, may consider proposing the permanent removal of the member pursuant Section 4.04 of the Bylaws.

Article 10. Other sanctions. The Board of Directors or the Ombudsman might consider other types or duration of sanctions according to the severity of the violation.

Article 11. Communications. The Board of Directors shall notify all the interested parties (offender and offended) upon any action taken in relation to the Code of Conduct Incident reported. When a ban is implemented, the name of the banned person and the effective dates of the ban will be published on the Open Source Matters website for the reference of the community at large to ensure no speaking or other engagements are made with the offender during the period of their ban.

Article 12. Order of Precedence. In case of conflict between the provisions of this Policy, the order of precedence for conflict resolution in descending order shall be as follows:

  1. Bylaws, including
  2. amendments; and
  3. the Policies.

This policy has been adopted by the Board of Directors of Open Source Matters, Inc. with the motion #2019-041 on April 05, 2019  and is published under the Policies section of the organization’s website.

Official Policy version

The official version of the policy adopted by the Board of Directors on April 05, 2019

pdfDownload the Official Policy regarding Breaches of the Code of Conduct (version 1.0)

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