Greg appointed to the Django Code of Conduct Committee

Since the beginning of Interaction Consortium, many things have changed – people come and go and the company has shifted offices as we grew – but one of the things that has remained constant is IC’s core values.

Anyone who works with IC knows there are a strong set of values that drive the company, whether or not they’ve ever heard them articulated – you can feel it. There is a strong commitment to acting with integrity, making people (both clients and staff) feel at home and included. There’s also a massive commitment to technical mastery – pulling off technical feats other design agencies might say are impossible.

Aside from the intellectual and technical skills of the team, one thing that makes that mastery feasible is the platforms we use. IC always selects the best tool for the job, and very often that’s been Django and the programming language it’s built in, Python. Several IC developers have contributed to the core Django codebase and almost everyone at IC is active in the local and global Django communities. The SyDjango Meetup is held at the IC office.

Next to the core values, the ongoing commitment to the Django community is one of the most constant things around here.

We don't just choose technology for the features it has, it's about the feel of it - the quality of the architecture and the design, but most importantly the quality of the community that surrounds it.
Greg Turner

The Django framework isn’t just a good match for IC technically; both the Django open source community and the wider Python community have strong commitments to values similar to those that drive IC. This isn’t a coincidence – the alignment between IC and these communities has been consistent since the beginning and they’ve informed and driven each other in many ways.

Recently, Greg was invited to work on the Django Software Foundation’s Code of Conduct committee. DSF published its Code of Conduct in 2013 as a guide for how it asks Djangonauts to behave in online community spaces and events held by DSF. The code states some principles and spells them out a little.

The values of the Code, in brief,

• Be friendly and patient.
• Be welcoming.
• Be considerate.
• Be respectful.
• Be careful in the words that you choose.
• When we disagree, try to understand why.

Greg will be part of the committee who adjudicate reports of when the code is violated and take action. The actions of the committee gives the code some teeth. They also oversee its evolution and promote it online and at workshops and conferences.

We hope everyone is being awesome and respectful to their #Pycon buddies. Let us know if anything happens that is not 100% cool.
Greg Turner

As you can see from the Django Code of Conduct – these are not just attitudes, the community is working actively in many ways to continue lifting its game. The Django Girls organization deserves a particular shout-out for their excellent work inspiring more women to learn to program.

Alongside building great online experiences, Interaction Consortium is intensely committed to integrity and inclusion. Our work in the Django community – exemplified in Greg’s new role with the CoC committee – is one concrete way we enact and embody those values in the wider world.