FairConduct treats a Code of Conduct as both a participant-protection policy and a governance instrument. The standard combines clear misconduct rules with safeguards for scholarly exchange, fair administration, and accountable institutional authority.

Three foundational values

  • Dignity protects participants as persons from concrete misconduct and avoidable harm.
  • Neutrality protects inquiry and viewpoint by applying conduct rules without ideological preference.
  • Responsibility makes institutional authority identifiable, proportionate, reviewable, and open to scrutiny.

Eight design principles

The possible combinations of the three values organize eight practical principles:

  1. Respect for participants defines concrete misconduct and usable routes to assistance.
  2. Viewpoint protection protects scholarly, political, moral, methodological, and scientific positions from viewpoint-based enforcement.
  3. Institutional accountability identifies who owns, administers, and revises the policy, and under what authority.
  4. Conduct-based standards distinguish identifiable misconduct from subjective offense, discomfort, or disagreement.
  5. Proportional process increases procedural safeguards with the seriousness and duration of the consequences imposed.
  6. Impartial administration separates support and advocacy from neutral investigation, decision-making, and review.
  7. Responsible survey use protects participants, avoids steering answers, and accounts for how participant data and survey results are used.
  8. No required endorsement applies institutional restraint where none of the three values authorizes compelled agreement.

From principles to policy

Each applicable principle should be reflected in the attendee-facing Code, either directly or by summarizing the safeguard and identifying the public procedure or data policy that supplies its operating details. The builder turns these principles into selectable clauses, checks dependencies and tensions, and distinguishes provisions that belong directly in the Code from assurances that may rely on a named supporting procedure.

FairConduct is a drafting standard, not legal advice. Organizers remain responsible for adapting the generated policy to their event, institution, and jurisdiction.