The Rands Leadership Slack is a Leadership community.
The Rands Leadership Slack ("RLS") is an online community dedicated to the craft of leadership. The community is built around public and private channels focusing on leadership development. While many channels are not focused on leadership, all community participants are asked to act as leaders and must comply with the following Code of Conduct. Administrators will enforce this code throughout all channels within the Rands Leadership Slack.
Be a leader.
Be respectful of others, ask people to stop if you are bothered, respect privacy, understand this community is primarily not-for-profit, and attempt to resolve issues without Administrators. However, if you can't resolve an issue, you can contact the Administrators.
If you violate this Code of Conduct, it will be made clear to you, and you may be asked to leave the Rands Leadership Slack.
The Rands Leadership Slack is an encouraging community dedicated to developing the craft of leadership. The Rands Leadership Slack is an inclusive environment that treats all individuals respectfully, regardless of gender or gender identity (including transgender status), sexual orientation, age, disability, nationality, ethnicity, religion (or lack thereof), political affiliation, or career path.
We value respectful behavior above individual opinions.
Respectful behavior includes but is not limited to:
- Be considerate, kind, constructive, and helpful.
- Avoid demeaning, discriminatory, harassing, hateful, or physically threatening behavior, speech, and imagery.
- Due regard for the feelings, wishes, rights, and traditions of others.
If you need clarification on whether a communication, action, or behavior is respectful, ask the source instead of assuming. No, really. If you don't find clarity, ask your peers in #rls-culture, ask the Administrators publicly in #rls-admins, or DM the Administrators privately. We'd rather hear from you than hear about something you said or did after the fact, and we are here to help.
Don't be a bystander; be a leader. Role model respectful behavior, but also help to address disrespect when you see it within your community.
❗: Disrespectful behavior outside this community by active members may be considered a violation of this code of conduct at the administrators' discretion.
Protect IP and legally protected information. This community is not a public space. However, no one has signed a non-disclosure agreement ("NDA") to participate, and you should not presume anything you say here will remain private, so act accordingly.
If you want to disclose any content from a public channel outside this community, including submission to LLMs, we use a modified version of the Chatham House Rule as a guideline.
"Members are free to use information received from public channels, but the individual source of the information may not be revealed."
For attribution of specific content found on this Slack on public channels, we ask that you ask the originator of the content for permission. If you dont receive consent promptly, we ask that you credit the "Rands Leadership Slack." Sharing content from private channels is discouraged without permission from the private channel.
Manual aggregation and content organization are allowed, provided the aggregated artifact is only shared publicly within the community. Automated aggregated content organization is prohibited.
Once onboard, you will likely find yourself in a popular channel with many members who sound like we've figured it out. We haven't. While advice on one channel might read definitive, it is one member's lessons, interpretation, and learning from their leadership experience. While there is a diverse set of experiences within this community, we continue to learn at every level of expertise. The daily practice of leadership is more art than science.
This is a large community with many different humans populating hundreds of channels. Different channels have organically developed distinct personalities. Before posting in a channel with hundreds of members, we suggest you take the time to read the room. Specifically:
- Read the last couple of days of messages.
- Examine the channel topic for helpful tips.
- Click on the channel details and read the About section to see how many members are present, what messages have already been pinned, and what files have been shared.
❗: Posting the same message to multiple channels is spamming. Don't spam.
This community is hyper-allergic to unwanted commercial behavior. If you join this community to take value rather than contribute, the community will quickly notice and react.
Obvious commercial activities such as recruiting, lead generation, marketing, and other solicitation are prohibited except in channels dedicated to that purpose. This includes starting market research conversations outside of #market-research.
While obvious commercial behavior is easy to identify, non-obvious commercial behavior is a grey area. For example, self-promotional behavior, such as linking your blog or podcast, may be interpreted as commercial in some channels.
If you are wondering if a post is commercially appropriate, our guidelines are that you:
- Ask permission from the channel before posting a message that might be considered commercial, stating clear intent for the post, and,
- Listen to the response of your peers in the channel and act accordingly.
If, after engaging with the community, you are still wondering if a specific message is commercial or not, please ask in one of the channels dedicated to helping find their way in this community, such as #how-to-rls, #rls-admins, or #rls-rules.
As this community grows, our tolerance for unsolicited commercial behavior decreases.
❗:
- Using member contact information outside this community without permission is a Code of Conduct violation.
- Emailing members with unsolicited commercial offers based on information acquired within the community is a Code of Conduct violation.
- Aggressive message spamming is cause for automatic account deactivation.
A direct message ("DM") is a private message to one or more other members. Before sending a DM to a member you've never contacted, consider the following:
- Is it obvious to the other member why I am contacting them privately? If not, should I provide context, such as a public post?
- Could this message be considered unsolicited spam?
❗: Unsolicited DMs can be Code of Conduct violations, especially those with a commercial flavor.
On-topic and relevant commercial activity is allowed in these channels:
- #conferences-and-events
- #i-built-something
- #i-wrote-something
- #jobs
- #jobs-consulting
- #market-research
- #remote-jobs
- #services
- #watches
- #wedidit
Some geographically focused channels have a higher tolerance for specific kinds of commercial activity focused on events based in that region. Again, read the room. If you'd like approval for a channel to be listed as commercial, please get in touch with the Administrators.
❗:
- In channels where commercial activity is allowed, it is just as unwelcome to post an unrelated commercial offering as it is to post in non-commercial channels.
- Commercial requests via direct messages ("DM") without prior and apparent consent from the receiver are prohibited.
- If you feel a message should be deleted, please refer to our overview of Deleting Content.
We've received many requests to run surveys in specific channels. Members interested in surveying a channel must clearly state in the channel they intend to survey:
- The goal of the survey
- How the data will be used
- When and how will the results be shared with the channel
❗: Surveys posted without considering the above guidelines are considered a Code of Conduct violation.
As a leadership community, we believe peer-to-peer discussions, feedback, and corrections can help build a stronger, safer, more informed, and more welcoming community.
If you see someone violating any part of this Code of Conduct, we urge you to respectfully dissuade them from such behavior using specifics from this document as guidelines. Expect that others wish to help keep the community respectful and welcome your input.
If you experience disrespectful behavior toward yourself or anyone else and feel unable or unwilling to respond or resolve it respectfully (for any reason), please immediately bring it to the attention of an (Administrator). We want to hear from you about anything you feel is disrespectful, threatening, or something that could make someone feel distressed. We will listen and work to resolve the matter promptly with your help.
Should you catch yourself behaving disrespectfully or be confronted as such, listen intently, own up to your words and actions, and apologize accordingly. No one is perfect, and even well-intentioned people make mistakes. We are here to learn how to handle these situations to avoid repeating them in the future.
A troll is a member who starts flame wars or intentionally upsets other members by posting inflammatory, digressive, extraneous, or off-topic messages to provoke members into displaying emotional responses and normalizing tangential discussion either for the troll's amusement or a specific gain.
The determination of whether a message is trolling is often a subjective assessment by administrators. If you cannot resolve a situation, trolling can be handled via the Content Review Process.
❗:
- Admins may delete messages that violate the Code of Conduct.
- In non-trolling cases, the authors of those messages will be notified and may be given a chance to modify the message themselves.
Admins may come across or be notified of RLS content violating the Code of Conduct. In some situations, this may lead to an Administrator deleting the message (or messages) that violate the CoC. Messages most likely to be deleted are commercial solicitations, disrespectful messages to other members, or links to disturbing or distressing content without appropriate measures to warn of or hide the content (including image uploads and unfurls).
Ideally, another RLS member will notice this content and contact the original poster, which will modify or delete the message so it is no longer problematic. In this case, no further Administrator action is required.
In the case that the Administrator's action is required because of a lack of response from the poster, the Administrator will notify the original poster of the violation and request changes to the problematic message in a timely fashion based on:
- How blatant the violation is
- How likely it is to be seen by others (higher-volume channels get less time)
- How likely it is to trigger negative reactions in others
If you cannot resolve a situation peacefully, please refer to our Incident Process and choose a course that suits the situation.
Suppose the Administrators determine that a member is violating any part of this Code of Conduct. In that case, they may take appropriate action, including expulsion and exclusion from the Rands Leadership Slack. Results of Administrator action are shared with involved members only and not the community.
As Administrators, we will seek to resolve conflicts peacefully and in a manner that is positive for the community. This Code of Conduct documents everyday situations we've seen, but we can't foresee every situation. If, in the Administrator's judgment, the best thing to do is to ask a disrespectful individual to leave, we will do so.
Administrators serve two-year terms with an option for a second term.
The Administrator(s) of Rands Leadership as of October 2024:
- @alden (Second term expires on November 30th, 2025)
- @Ian Fette (Second term expires on November 30th, 2025)
- @Andrew Murphy (First term expires on November 30th, 2025)
- @angelariggs (First term expires on November 30th, 2025)
- @Brendan Smithyman (First term expires on November 30th, 2025)
- @rands (workspace owner)
A call for new Administrators process kicks off in September before the end-of-term date for Administrators.
You can contact them directly or post your questions or concerns in the #rls-admins channel.
Administrators have information that is not available to all users as part of the role. This information includes:
- Any member provided email addresses as part of our sign-up process.
- Information contained within member requests to join the community. This might include email, name, and occupation.
- Access log information provided by the Slack administrator interface. This includes name, login times, login device, and IP.
Administrators cannot access private channels unless they are members of that channel.
Administrators may choose to access this information as part of Code of Conduct investigations. Administrators may also request information from private channels from current channel members to investigate a Code of Conduct violation.
Administrators may use the above information as part of a Code of Conduct investigation. Usage of this information unrelated to administrator work is forbidden and will be treated as a Code of Conduct violation.
@rands is the maintainer of this document. DM @rands in the Rands Leadership Slack or mail him if you have questions.
Thank you to every Rands Leadership Slack community member for helping make our home the respectful and inclusive community it is.
Thanks to Tantek Çelik and the other organizers of IndieWebCamp for creating and sharing the Code of Conduct on which this one was initially based. If you question the need for a Code of Conduct, please see this.
This Code of Conduct is released under the CC0 public domain license.
V5.0 of this Code of Conduct was published on October 6, 2024. If you have any questions or suggestions regarding this Code of Conduct, please join us in #rls-code-of-conduct.
You can see all prior versions of this artifact here.