The U.S. Semantic Technologies Symposium (US2TS) is organized as a forum to encourage rich interactions and promote the free exchange of ideas to benefit the community. US2TS welcomes all symposium participants that foster inclusion and respect to all members of the community. US2TS conforms to the ISWC code of conduct, specifically:

We aim at providing a respectful and inclusive symposium experience for everyone. Respectful behavior is always assumed and expected of community members during all symposium events, on-line discussions about symposium topics, and networking events held after hours. Symposium participants are expected to interact with others in a respectful and courteous manner, regardless of age, race, ethnicity, national origin, ancestry, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender presentation, physical appearance, religious affiliation, creed, marital status, differing abilities, medical conditions, personal characteristics, or technology choices.

Abusive, racist, sexist, homophobic, intimidating, harassing, or threatening behavior towards any other conference participant or directed at any organizer, student volunteer, sponsor, conference staff or locals, will not be tolerated.

US2TS disapproves of offensive actions, aggressive acts, or comments that intimidate or disparage others. US2TS will not tolerate any kind of harassment, including but not limited to:

• Verbal attacks, accusations, bullying, or offensive comments
• Aggressive or intimidatory questioning
• Sustained disruption during presentations and other events
• Unwelcome sexual attention
• Inappropriate physical contact
• Deliberate intimidation or stalking both in person and on-line
• Sexual and racist images and materials in public spaces
• Ignoring, encouraging, or advocating any of the above behaviours

US2TS expects all community members to endorse this code of conduct, and to actively prevent and discourage any undesired behaviors. Everyone should feel empowered to politely engage when themselves or others are disrespected, and to raise awareness and understanding of this code of conduct. Symposium participants asked to stop any unacceptable behavior are expected to comply immediately.

To report any behavior that makes you or others uncomfortable please contact (by email or in person) any of the US2TS organizers, who are committed to treat such reports confidentially.

Those violating these rules may be sanctioned or expelled from the conference without a refund at the discretion of US2TS.

Sponsors are also subject to code of conduct in events, images, and other materials.

This code of conduct complements all legal rights that apply to particular situations.

References

• http://swsa.semanticweb.org/content/code-conduct-iswc
• http://confcodeofconduct.com/
• https://www.w3.org/Consortium/cepc/
• https://www.aclweb.org/adminwiki/index.php?title=Anti-Harassment_Policy
• https://www.iscb.org/ismbeccb2015-general-info/ismbeccb2015-coc
• https://chi2017.acm.org/diversity-inclusion-statement.html
• https://sites.google.com/view/aiide2017/home/code-of-conduct
• http://www.humancomputation.com/2017/codeofconduct.html
• http://www.ifaamas.org/harassment.html
• https://github.com/Polymer/polymer/wiki/Code-of-Conduct
• http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/
• http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents
• https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html
• https://www.projectcallisto.org/