Code of Conduct

The Music Encoding Conference values your attendance and is dedicated to providing a positive, harassment-free conference experience for everyone. We want MEC to be welcoming and supportive and we do not tolerate harassment of conference participants in any form.

All communication should be appropriate for a professional audience including people of many different backgrounds. Verbal comments that reinforce social structures of domination related to gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, national or regional origin, body size, race, age, religion, or other marginalized characteristics are inappropriate. Be kind to others. Do not insult or put down other attendees. Be careful in the words that you choose. Remember that sexist, racist, and other exclusionary jokes are not appropriate for MEC. We ask that participants use discretion with photographs of others, recordings, and publicly sharing others’ ideas.

If a participant engages in harassing behavior, the MEC organizing committee may take any action it deems appropriate, including warning the offender or expulsion from the event. If you are being harassed, witness another participant being harassed, or have any other concerns, please contact an event organizer immediately.

Attendee Procedure for Handling Harassment

Conference staff will keep the name and identity of any reports confidential unless explicitly discussed with the person reporting.

1. Contact a member of conference staff, who can be identified by their badges. All of our conference staff members are informed of the code of conduct policy and guide for handling harassment at the conference.
2. When reporting the event to staff, try to gather as much information as available, but do not interview people about the incident. Conference staff will assist you in writing report/collecting information. The important information consists of:
   • Identifying information (name) of the participant doing the harassing
   • The behavior that was in violation of the code of conduct
   • The approximate time of the behavior (if different than the time the report was made)
   • The circumstances surrounding the incident
   • Other people involved in the incident

Acknowledgements

This policy is adapted from the policies of:

• ACRL/NY: https://acrlny.org/about2/code-of-conduct
• CritLib Unconference 2015: https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/critlib/2015/Conference/18/
• Ontario Library Association Super Conference 2018: https://www.olasuperconference.ca/about/code-of-conduct/
• Foss4G 2017: https://2017.foss4g.org/about/Code-of-Conduct.pdf
• Tufts Social Science Librarians Bootcamp 2019: https://sites.tufts.edu/sslbc2019/code-of-conduct/ and https://sites.tufts.edu/sslbc2019/code-of-conduct/attendee-procedure/

This policy is licensed under the Creative Commons Zero license. It is public domain, no credit and no open licensing of your version is required. Most recent update: April 2021.