Program Committee and Event Volunteer Guidelines

Volunteers who help with the planning, organization, or production of a Linux Foundation event are often seen as representatives of the Linux Foundation community or Linux Foundation project that the event relates to, and their actions can meaningfully impact participants’ experience and perception of the event.  Therefore, and in the interest of fostering an open, positive, and welcoming environment for our community, it’s important that all event volunteers hold themselves to a high standard of professional conduct as described below.

These guidelines apply to a volunteer’s conduct and statements that relate to or could have an impact on any Linux Foundation event that the volunteer helps plan, organize, select speakers for, or otherwise serve as a volunteer for.  These guidelines apply to relevant conduct occurring before, during, and after the event, both within community spaces and outside such spaces (including statements from personal social media accounts), and to both virtual and physical events. In addition to these guidelines, event volunteers must also comply with The Linux Foundation Event Code of Conduct.

Event volunteers are expected to:

• Conduct themselves in a professional manner suitable for a workplace environment;
• Treat other event participants (including speakers, sponsors, exhibitors, attendees, volunteers, and staff) with courtesy and kindness; and
• In their event-related communications, express their opinions in a courteous and respectful manner, even when disagreeing with others, and refrain from using obscenities, insults, rude or derisive language, excessive profanity, or other unprofessional language, images, or content.

The manner in which event volunteers communicate can have a large impact personally and professionally on others in the community. Event volunteers should strive to provide feedback or criticism relating to the event or any person or organization’s participation in the event in a constructive manner that supports others in learning, growing, and improving (e.g., offering suggestions for improvement).  Event volunteers should avoid providing feedback in a destructive or demeaning manner (e.g., insulting or publicly shaming someone for their mistakes).

Event volunteers should be considerate in choosing channels for communicating feedback.  Positive or neutral feedback may be communicated in any channel or medium.  In contrast, criticism about any individual event participant, staff member, or volunteer should be communicated in one or more private channels (rather than publicly) to avoid causing unnecessary embarrassment.  Criticism about an event that is not about specific individuals may be expressed privately or publicly, so long as it is expressed in a respectful, considerate, and professional manner.

Event volunteers may have access to details about proposed or accepted speakers and the contents of their talks. They are required to adhere to The Linux Foundation’s guidelines regarding use of this information and may only use it for the purpose of choosing talks for an event. They are prohibited from using this data for any other purpose, including but not limited to the following:

• Using the information for unrelated business purposes
• Contacting speakers for any purpose other than evaluating their submission for this event
• Asking a submitter to speak at another event or recruiting them for another role
• Sharing the information with anyone outside of the program committee or sharing the acceptance of the talk prior to the schedule and abstract being announced

The event organizers may update these guidelines from time to time, and will notify volunteers by email and via the Linux Foundation Slack channels designated for event volunteers.  However, any changes to these guidelines will not apply retroactively.  If the Linux Foundation Events team determines that a volunteer has violated these guidelines or The Linux Foundation Event Code of Conduct, it may result in the volunteer’s immediate suspension or removal from any event-related volunteer positions they hold, including participation in event-related committees. If these guidelines are updated and a volunteer does not wish to agree, their participation in the event-related volunteer position will cease until such time as they do agree.