Meetup Organizers’ Procedure for Incident Response

Before the meetup

Familiarize yourself with the Indie Hackers (IH) Code of Conduct and the attendee process for reporting incidents.

When taking an incident report

1. Ask the reporter if they want to go to a quiet space.
2. Be an active listener, and don’t use judgment words.
3. Ensure the reporter’s safety.
4. Keep written/typed notes of the report and ask any clarifying questions.
5. Thank the reporter for reporting the incident.
6. Email the Indie Hackers central staff with details of the incident within 24 hours of the report:

• Courtland Allen
  • Co-Founder, Indie Hackers
  • courtland@indiehackers.com
• Channing Allen
  • Co-Founder, Indie Hackers
  • channing@indiehackers.com

While gathering information from the reporter

• Never encourage them to withdraw the incident report.
• Do not ask for their advice on how to immediately respond to the incident.
• Do not offer them input into the long-term response to the incident.
• Do not promise any particular response, since it may differ from the official response.

Try to get as much of the incident in written form by the reporter. If you cannot, transcribe it yourself as it was told to you. The important information to gather include the following:

• Date and time the report was made
• Date, time, and location of the incident
• Description of the incident
• Identifying information of the reported person
  • Name or other identifying characteristics such as physical appearance, height, clothing, accent, company name
• Reporter’s name and contact information.
  • If the reporter wants to make an anonymous report, allow them to do so.
  • If responding to the incident would reveal who reported the incident (e.g., an offense during a one-on-one conversation), ask the reporter if they have safety concerns about this.
• Other people involved in or witnesses to the incident and their contact information or description
• The reporter’s desired resolution, if offered
  • Do not solicit suggestions from the reporter, but record them if they choose to suggest any.

Assess whether an immediate response is necessary. This initial response is very important and will set the tone for future Indie Hackers events. Depending on the severity/details of the incident, please follow these guidelines:

• If there is any general threat to the physical safety of anyone at the event, contact law enforcement or venue security.
• If everyone is presently physically safe, involve law enforcement or security only at a reporter’s request.

Respond to the reporter’s needs. You can:

• Thank the reporter for making the incident report.
• Reassure them that Indie Hackers leadership will review the incident report.
• Let them know they will receive follow-up with the report’s resolution.
• Ask them, “How else can I help?”

Resolving incident reports

When someone reports an incident, Indie Hackers staff will discuss it with the meetup ambassador. The objectives of this discussion are to:

• Review report documentation to determine what happened
• Consult documentation of past incidents for patterns of behavior
• Discuss appropriate response(s) to the incident
• Assign a person to make those reponse(s)
• Determine the follow-up actions for any impacted people and/or the reporter
• Assign a person to follow up with the impacted people

After the discussion an IH staff member or ambassador may choose to communicate with the reported person.

Handling conflicts of interest

If the meetup organizer has a personal relationship with anyone involved in a reported incident, they must disclose this relationship to IH staff during the resolution discussion to mitigate bias in the process.

Communicating with reported person

When following up with a reported person:

• Confirm the details of the incident.
• Focus on the impact of their behavior.
• Reiterate the Code of Conduct and that their behavior was not appropriate.
• Give them concrete examples of how they can improve their behavior.
• Remind them of the consequences of their behavior, or future consequences if the behavior is repeated.

People who are reported often get upset, defensive, or deny the report. Allow them to give any additional details about the incident. However, remember:

• It does not matter if they did not intend to hurt anyone. Their behavior still impacted attendees negatively.
• Your role is not to reassure or forgive them.
• Discourage the reported person from making an apology to the reporter or impacted person.
  • Often an apology centers the reported person’s feelings and not the person who was impacted.
  • You may accept their apology and offer to pass it on but you’re not required to if you think it would negatively impact the reporter.

Possible incident resolutions

What follows are examples of possible responses to an incident report. This list is is not exhaustive. Indie Hackers reserves the right to take any action it deems necessary.

Possible responses to an incident include:

• No action, if the behavior was determined to not be a Code of Conduct violation
• A verbal or emailed warning
• Requiring that the reported person avoid any interaction with, and physical proximity to, another person for the remainder of the event
• Requiring that a person immediately leave the event and not return
• Banning a person from future events (either indefinitely or for a certain time period)
• Ending a talk early if it violates the Code of Conduct
• Not publishing the video or slides of a talk that violated the Code of Conduct
• Not allowing a speaker who violated the Code of Conduct to give talks at the event now or in the future
• Ending any event volunteer responsibilities and privileges the a person holds
• Requiring that a person not volunteer for future IH events (either indefinitely or for a certain time period)

If a reported person wants to appeal the decision, notify them that they may contact the Indie Hackers staff (listed above). Keep in mind that it is not a good idea to encourage the reported person to make a personal apology.

Post-resolution

It is very important how we deal with the incident publicly. Our policy is to make sure that everyone aware of the initial incident is also made aware that it is not according to policy and that official action has been taken - while still respecting the privacy of individual attendees.

If some attendees were angered by the incident, it is best to apologize to them that the incident occurred to begin with. If there are residual hard feelings, encourage them to email Indie Hackers leaders (Courtland Allen and Channing Allen) to share their thoughts.