Community Network Code of Conduct

The BC Small Water Systems Community Network is dedicated to supporting all small water system owners in British Columbia to have access to the knowledge, training, tools, and resources they require to make informed decisions about the long-term management and sustainability of their system. The Community Network is also dedicated to supporting stakeholders within the small water system ecosystem to work collaboratively to share resources, expertise, and experience.

The BC Small Water Systems Community Network is dedicated to providing a welcoming, productive, and safe environment for all, regardless of level of experience, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, personal appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, age, religion, nationality, or other similar characteristic.

We also believe that this applies to characteristics related to the water sector specifically, such as job type, region, size and type of community, skill set, education and certifications, and area of expertise in the water industry.

We know that a community where people feel uncomfortable or threatened is not a productive one. We also know that excluding members of the community from participation, either directly or indirectly based on the above stated criteria or similar prevents the rich level of interaction that makes a thriving community.

Building Trust: Building trust will be vital to the success of the Community Network platform and goes hand in hand with creating a welcoming, productive, and safe environment. Trust itself can be built on a variety of factors including, expertise, good will, reliability, and authenticity. Consider the skills you have and how to best share them with the community. Consider your intentions on the platform. Consider if you are engaging in an open and honest way. 

The Community Network has created an environment where diverse individuals from within the small water systems ecosystem can collaborate and interact in a welcoming, productive and safe way. Examples of how you can contribute to creating this sort of environment include:

• Be your best self.
  Everyone wants to get along and are participating in this Community Network because they want to talk and learn about small water systems in BC. As a rule, people are eager to assume good intent and forgive as long as you earn their trust.

• Participate in an authentic and active way.
  In doing so, you contribute to the health and longevity of the community.

• Be friendly and patient.
  Use welcoming and inclusive language.

• Be considerate and respectful in your speech and actions.
  There is no need to be mean or rude.

• Be respectful of differing viewpoints.
  Differing viewpoints is no excuse for poor behavior and poor manners.

• Be respectful of people’s differences and experiences.
  Remember that we’re different. The strength of the Community Network comes from the wide range of backgrounds of its participants and different people will hold different viewpoints.

• Accept criticism with grace.
  If someone takes issue with something you said or did, resist the urge to be defensive. If you crossed an inappropriate boundary, take a breath and apologize. Even if you feel you were misinterpreted or unfairly accused, chances are good there was miscommunication — remember that it’s everyone's responsibility to make fellow community members comfortable.

• Be careful of the words that you choose.
  Do not insult or put down others. Harassment and other exclusionary behaviour is not accepted. If you are uncertain, see the Code of Conduct for further clarification.

• Avoid wandering into offensive or sensitive issues.
  Particularly if they’re off-topic; this all too often leads to unnecessary confrontations, hurt feelings, and damaged trust; worse, it can drive people away from the community entirely.

• Report inappropriate behaviour.
  There are mechanisms for reporting, see the Reporting Guide. Complaints about bans in-channel are not allowed and will be sanctioned.

Community Network Supporters are individuals representing themselves or an organization, and who provide expertise, programs, services or products that serve the small water systems community. Supporters are an important part of the Community Network because of the resources that they provide to small water systems Owners.

In order to make the Community Network a safe and inviting place for everyone, it is important that Supporters behave in such a way that Owners do not feel harassed or vulnerable to marketing efforts from network Supporters.

To support the Community Network as a Supporter:

• Avoid direct solicitation.
  There are mechanisms for letting the network know about your expertise and your organization’s programs, any direct solicitation will be sanctioned, and appropriate actions will be taken by Community Moderators or BCWWA staff.

• Keep private conversations private.
  If you are both an Owner and Supporter, your involvement in the Owners Lounge (restricted area) should demonstrate respect for the internal conversations. You have an additional responsibility to keep your Supporter side in check when in the restricted areas.

• Make your resources searchable and available through the Community Network.
  If you have resources to benefit the Community Network, work with the BCWWA team to ensure that people can search for it and link through to the original website. For example, it is reasonable to point people to instructional videos on your website through the Community Network's Resource tab.

• Share your knowledge and expertise in appropriate ways. 
  The following are additional ways you can engage on the Community Network as a Supporter:
  • Sharing your expertise and insights on the Technical Discussion forums in the Knowledge Zone
  • Writing an article of interest to the community and sharing it on the Articles tab in the Knowledge Zone, allowing for associated discussion underneath your article
  • Posting opportunities for engagement and learning in the Community News within the Opportunities tab or the Upcoming Events tab.

To ensure that the Community Network maintains an environment that is welcoming, productive, and safe for everyone, the site is being moderated.

The Community Network site is solely owned by the BCWWA. As such, BCWWA staff, as administrators of this site retain the right to manage all aspects of the site, including content and site users, either independently or to support the Community Network volunteers.

Moderators are volunteers within the community Network who monitor the Technical Discussion forums to ensure that conversations are on topic and meeting established standards of conduct. They work in conjunction with BCWWA staff. Volunteer Community Moderators have the ability to remove a post and make recommendations regarding users not adhering to Code of Conduct guidelines. 

Hosts/Moderators are volunteers within the Community Network who monitor the discussion forums to ensure that conversations are on topic and meeting established standards of conduct. They work in conjunction with BCWWA staff, who administer the Community Network.

Moderators who volunteer for these roles are first and foremost interested in great discussions and encouraging people to participate on the network. Importantly, they are committed to creating a welcoming, productive, and safe Community Network. To support this objective, Moderators can:

• Determine that a post needs to be removed from a discussion thread
• Reach out to Community Network participants about inappropriate behaviours or posts
  • This includes sending gentle reminders about the  Creating a Welcoming, Productive, and Safe Environment component of the Code of Conduct
• Escalate repeat or egregious behaviour to BCWWA staff and/or the Code of Conduct committee
• Recommend a “cooling off” or to ban a user to BCWWA staff and/or the Code of Conduct Committee

Important:

If a Community Moderator removes a post and you think it was unjustified, please take it up with that Moderator, or with the Code of Conduct Committee, in private. Complaints about bans in-channel are not allowed.

Moderators are held to a higher standard than other community members. If a moderator creates an inappropriate situation, they should expect less leeway than others.

The Community Network Code of Conduct Committee is comprised of volunteer Community Moderators and BCWWA Staff. This group is used as an escalation for users who would like to appeal a decision made about their content (ie. removing a post). 

This group also reviews actions taken by Community Moderators and BCWWA staff to provide feedback regarding consistency and continuous improvement.

• The BC Small Water Systems Community Network is an entity of the BC Water & Waste Association. As such, the BCWWA reserves the right to remove individuals from the Community Network platform for any reason they deem necessary.
• The Community Network Guidelines, including the Community Network Code of Conduct applies to all of the community's spaces, including public channels, private channels and direct messages, both online and off the Community Network platform. We expect all community members to abide by this Code of Conduct.

The BC Small Water Systems Community Network platform has built its Code of Conduct on the foundation of the BCWWA Code of Conduct. All statements regarding inappropriate behaviours or harassment are considered extensions of the intent of this document.

Members of the Community Network who violate the Code of Conduct may be sanctioned or expelled from the platform at the discretion of the BCWWA staff and/or at the recommendation of Community Moderators. Other responses are included within the Reporting Guide.

Concrete descriptions of unacceptable behaviour have been outlined in the Harassment and Inappropriate Behaviours section of the Code of Conduct.

Members contacted by BCWWA staff or Community Moderators regarding unacceptable behaviour are expected to comply immediately.

IMPORTANT: Complaints about bans in-channel are not allowed.

Every Code of Conduct violation will be treated with seriousness and care. If a member's immediate safety and security is threatened, an individual Community Moderator or BCWWA staff may take any action that they deem appropriate, up to and including temporarily banning the offender from the community.

In the event of any conflict of interest, a Community Moderator, Code of Conduct Committee member, or BCWWA staff must notify other volunteers or members and excuse themselves if necessary. If a report concerns a possible violation by a current Committee member or Community Moderator, this member will be excluded from the response process.

The Community Network will respect confidentiality requests for the purpose of protecting victims of abuse. At our discretion, we may publicly name a person about whom we've received complaints of unacceptable behaviour, or privately warn third parties about them if we believe that doing so will increase the safety of our members or the general public. We will not name any victims without their affirmative consent.

In some cases, we may determine that a public statement will need to be made. If that's the case, the identities of all victims and reporters will remain confidential unless those individuals instruct us otherwise.

If you have concerns about the behaviour of a member, either from your direct experience or if you notice another member may be the victim of unacceptable or inappropriate behaviour, please contact the administrators at smallwaternetwork@bcwwa.org. If there is a conflict of interest, that individual will not be involved in the response process or with resolving the incident. 

The BCWWA team will respond to any complaint as promptly as possible. If you do not get a timely response (for example, if no staff members are currently online) then please put your personal safety and well-being first and consider logging out.

This Code of Conduct applies to our community's spaces, but if you are experiencing inappropriate behaviour directed at you from another member outside our space, we still want to know about it. BCWWA staff and Community Moderators will take all good-faith reports of inappropriate and unacceptable behaviour by our members seriously. This includes experiences outside of our spaces and that took place at any point in time. The BCWWA staff reserve the right to exclude people from the community based on their past behavior, including behavior outside of our spaces and behavior towards people who are not in this community. To protect volunteers from abuse and burnout, we reserve the right to reject any report we believe to have been made in bad faith. Reports intended to silence legitimate criticism may be deleted without response.

Whether you’re a regular contributor or a newcomer, the Community Network is committed to creating a welcoming, productive, and safe space and we’ve got your back.

If you believe someone is violating the Code of Conduct we ask that you report it to BCWWA staff at smallwaternetwork@bcwwa.ca. All reports will be kept confidential. In some cases we may determine that a public statement will need to be made.

If you believe anyone is in physical danger, please notify appropriate law enforcement first. If you are unsure what law enforcement agency is appropriate, please include this in your report and we will attempt to notify them.

If you are unsure whether the incident is a violation, or whether the space where it happened is covered by this Code of Conduct, we encourage you to still report it. We would much rather have a few extra reports where we decide to take no action, rather than miss a report of an actual violation. We do not look negatively on you if we find the incident is not a violation. Knowing about incidents that are not violations or happen outside our spaces can also help us to improve the Code of Conduct or the processes surrounding it.

WHEN YOU FILE A REPORT YOU WILL BE ASKED TO INCLUDE:

• Your contact information (to get in touch if follow-up is required).
• Names (real, nicknames, or pseudonyms) of any individual(s) involved. If there were other witnesses besides you, please try to include them as well.
• When are where the incident occurred. Please be as specific as possible.
• Your account of what occurred. If there is a publicly available record (i.e. Technical Discussion forum ID) please include a link.
• Whether you believe this incident is ongoing.
• Any extra context or other information you believe is relevant and that we should have to address the incident.

BCWWA staff will send an acknowledgement of receipt of your complaint and will investigate the complaint to determine:

• What happened in the incident.
• Whether this event constitutes as a Code of Conduct violation.
• Who the bad actor was.
• Whether this is an ongoing situation, or if there is a threat to anyone's physical safety.

If this is determined to be an ongoing incident or a threat to physical safety, the immediate priority will be to protect everyone involved. This means we may delay an "official" response until we believe that the situation has ended and that everyone is physically safe.

BCWWA staff may choose to respond directly to a complaint or may forward the information to the Code of Conduct Committee for recommended action.

Responses to incident of unacceptable behaviour may include:

• Nothing (if we determine no violation occurred).
• Network wide Community Guidelines and Code of Conduct Reminder.
• The removal of the post(s) involved in the violation.
• A private reminder from the Community Moderator about adhering to the Community Network Guidelines.
• A private reprimand from the Code of Conduct Committee and/or BCWWA staff to the individual(s) involved.
• A public reprimand.
• An imposed “cooling off” period from the Community Network.
• A temporary or permanent ban from some or all Community Network spaces.
• A request for a public or private apology.

All responses will be documented and reviewed for consistency and continuous improvement by the Code of Conduct Committee.

BCWWA staff commit to responding within one week to the person who filed the report with either a resolution or an explanation of why the situation is not yet resolved.

Once we've determined our final action, we'll contact the original reporter to let them know what action (if any) we'll be taking. We'll take into account feedback from the reporter on the appropriateness of our response, but we don't guarantee we'll act on it.

If a report is received by BCWWA staff that contains a possible violation from a member of the Code of Conduct Committee, the BCWWA staff will follow standard review processes. BCWWA staff may choose to request the member abstain from resolution proceedings due to a conflict of interest. For more information see  Conflicts of Interest. 

Any of the parties directly involved or affected can request reconsideration of the Code of Conduct Committee’s decision. To make such a request, contact BCWWA staff at smallwaternetwork@bcwwa.org with your request and motivation. The Code of Conduct committee will review the case.

Individuals may request to discuss the violation and how to avoid similar situations in the future. Depending on the severity of the violation, follow-up will occur with the Community Moderator, through the Code of Conduct Committee or with BCWWA staff.

Compliance

Privacy and the protection of data is of the utmost importance. BCWWA staff want to ensure all users of the platform are comfortable and that personal data is protected. The BC Small Water Systems Community Network platform is hosted on the association management software in1touch by OlaTech Corporation. All data resides in Canada and is in compliance with the Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA).

Ministry of Health

In 2020, the BC Ministry of Health partnered with the BCWWA with the intention of building a mechanism that would support the small water systems community by connecting them with peer networks, resources, information, and expertise. Although the Ministry of Health remains a main contributor of the project, they are not privy to the data that resides on the platform about members. The Ministry of Health will receive aggregate data an information (i.e. ‘There are 24 small water systems from X region’) and no personal identifiers will be attached to the data. For any questions regarding privacy and data, please contact BCWWA staff at smallwaternetwork@bcwwa.org.

This Community Code of Conduct has been based on a variety of existing Community Covenant examples including:

• https://community-covenant.net/version/1/0/code_of_conduct.md.
• Community Covenant by Coraline Ada Ehmke is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Based on a work at http://community-covenant.net/.