Conference anti-harassment/Actions

This page lists actions individuals can take in support of the adoption of a conference anti-harassment policy at conferences in their community.

Please note that this list is a list of suggestions. You may not be empowered to take all these actions, or you may decide that the cost of them is too great, or that you don't agree that they're useful actions. That's fine. You can support a policy and choose not to support it in these specific ways.

1. Make sponsorship of events contingent on a policy (here is a very readable essay on why the Python Software Foundation adopted this rule).
2. Privately request a policy by directly contacting the conference organisers, and their parent organisation if there is one (some conferences are run by a non-profit parent body, for example).
3. Publicly request a policy by blogging or tweeting or similar.
4. Organise a petition within your community demonstrating support for the policy adoption.
5. Do not attend conferences without a policy, and let them know of your decision.
6. When submitting talks to conferences, make your appearance contingent on a policy existing.
7. When invited to keynote conferences, make your appearance contingent on a policy existing.
8. Make distinctive buttons, ribbons or stickers in support of a policy and distribute them for supporters to wear at the event.
9. Privately or publicly thank conferences that do adopt a policy (and their parent body, if any).
10. Help publicise conferences that do have a policy.
11. Preferentially attend conferences with a policy and let them know that you did so.
12. Gather a group together to review various policies and their rationales, harassment incidents within your communitiy, and recommend a policy suitable for your community,
13. Volunteer to act as a duty officer at events you attend.
14. Document harassment at the conference on Timeline of incidents, including past incidents that weren't made public at the time.
15. Create a travel scholarship for women that is contingent on a policy.
16. Refuse to volunteer for or run events that benefit a conference unless it has a policy.
17. Adopt policies in spaces you control and publicize both the policies and the reasoning behind.
18. Publicly make a personal pledge to not engage in harassment and to speak up when you see harassment, as sci-fi author Jim C. Hines did.