The Code of Conduct, DEIB and Sustainability

Why is it important?

WordPress powers 43% of the web, what we do as contributors sets an example! For the online and offline world. Be an open-source advocate wherever you go and act with the utmost respect towards everyone! Represent!

DEIB

DEIB stands for Diversity, Inclusion, Equity and Belonging.

The values of inclusion are dear to my heart. I try to always welcome people in my world, people from so many different walks of life, with different cultures, beliefs, gender, orientation, age, etc. See more on my “About me” page, under Values, after the scrolling sequence.

I love those and that corresponds to my basic values. I gave a presentation at WordCamp Marseille 2017 about that. “Apply to Code of Conduct in our everyday life” (in French). See more on the page “Speaking at events“.

Having been bullied in school for being “the weirdo”, I developed very early a sense of what excludes and what includes others. I want everyone to know that you can always come to talk to me, especially if you feel unwelcome by others.

In WordCamps, I have always felt welcome (well almost always, there are always some bad apples, but very few). As a non-dev person, I first feared to be judged by highly skilled dev persons, until I saw that people welcomed me for all the strengths and other skills that I can bring to the project.

Something I love in participating in WordCamps is to meet people from many different countries and cultures. I love to have in the same place people from all continents. I specifically talk about WordCamp Europe here. When people from almost all over the world share stories, food (including religion-related specifics) and knowledge. Among my friends, I have people from countries currently at war with each others, and yet here they are, together, hoping for a peaceful resolution of conflicts! (Thanks for the Russian chocolate, S. 😉 ).

As someone who wants a peaceful, open world, with reduced borders and no nationalism, and who aspires to open-sourced governments or at least World Federalism, places like global WordCamps are a dream-come-true!

Now, this is not all rainbows and unicorns, neither care bears (even if I’m one myself). I’m often naive and try to learn to see beyond my biases. I participated to the Community Summit in August 2023, and the DEIB session was highly eye-opening on all the work that needs to be done! You can read the sessions notes here and comment.

I’m now in the DEIB working group (on Slack) led by Birgit Olzem, hoping to have it become an official team in the future, as an umbrella for all the other teams. Until that, you can find more on this site.

An important topic at WordCamps, is to get people from under-represented groups to apply as speakers (like it is to have diverse people to become contributors for the whole project). If organisers get the vast majority of speaker applications from young white cis-men, the final selection of speakers can NOT be diverse. On this topic, please apply as a speaker for the WordCamp Europe 2024 until 15 January 2024! A mentorship program is available for selected speakers, if you wish!

What’s more, as not everyone has access to the tools in the same way throughout the world, and that only people who show up (by contributing, speaking, etc) determine the direction of the project, this means that certain points of view are left out. We need to seek out people who are under-represented in this way, and find sponsors to support them financially, see the Five for the Future program.

Inspiring links:

• DJ Billings’ blog post: Acceptance at WordCamp US
• HumanMade statement
• Kirsty Burgoine’s talk: Over the Rainbow – Inclusivity for the LGBTQIA+ Community in WordPress
• Simona Simionato and Margherita Pelonara’s talk (in Italian): Siamo una community sicura e accogliente?
• BlackPress
• Morten Rand-Hendriksen’s post: Open Source Considered Harmful
  I do not share 100% of Morten’s opinions, but a large part of this post is essential

Sustainability

From the end of 2023, I also attend the Sustainability team meetings, especially to bring back the good ideas to the local events in Switzerland. The important thing to remember here is that progress is better than perfection. When it comes to the environment, the actions we all need to take at a global level are enormous and, at the same time, I’m not personally doing everything that would be necessary (I flew three times in 2023 and I drive a diesel car), which creates ambivalent feelings, so yes, progress rather than perfection!

As well as environmental issues, in particular to ensure that the whole WordPress project is sustainable in the long term, social and economic aspects are also the focus of the team, looking for ways to ensure the well-being of contributors and support them economically. I mention again the Five for the Future program.

The Code of Conduct

I love the Code of Conduct, that aims at inclusion and acceptance of everyone. Here below is an extract but you can read the full text here. When we organise WordPress events, or contribute as a speaker, volunteer or sponsor, we have to agree to this code and this enforce good behaviour which should go without saying.