Code of Conduct

Our Pledge

The Qiskit Community is dedicated to our values of treating every individual with respect and dignity. In the interest of fostering an open and welcoming environment, all participants, including attendees, speakers, sponsors, volunteers, online contributors, and IBM employees are expected to show courtesy for each other and our community by creating a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of age, personal appearance, disability, ethnicity, gender identity and expression, body size, level of experience, nationality, race, religion, caste, or sexual identity and orientation. Expected behavior applies to both online and offline engagement within the Qiskit Community.

Scope

The purpose of this Code of Conduct is to define and enforce the values and conduct of contributors and participants in the Qiskit open source community. The Code of Conduct applies both within project spaces and in public spaces when an individual is engaging with the Qiskit open source community. Examples include attending a Qiskit event, contributing to online projects, commentary on Slack, or representing a project or community, including using an official project e-mail address, posting via an official social media account, or acting as an appointed representative at an online or offline event. Representation of a project may be further defined and clarified by project maintainers.

Our Standards

Examples of behavior that contributes to creating a positive environment include:

Using welcoming and inclusive language
Being respectful of differing viewpoints, experiences, and cultures
Gracefully accepting constructive criticism
Focusing on what is best for the community
Showing empathy towards other community members
Being mindful of your surroundings and your fellow participants and listening to others
Valuing the contributions of all participants
Engaging in collaboration before conflict
Pointing out unintentionally racist, sexist, casteist, or biased comments and jokes made by community members when they happen

Examples of unacceptable behavior by participants, even when presented as "ironic" or "joking," include:

The use of sexualized language or imagery and unwelcome physical contact, sexual attention, or advances
Trolling, insulting/derogatory comments, and personal or political attacks
Public or private harassment, including offensive or degrading language
Publishing others' private information, such as a physical or electronic address, without explicit permission. This includes any sort of "outing" of any aspect of someone's identity without their consent.
"Doxxing," Publishing screenshots or quotes, especially from identity slack channels, private chat, or public events, without all quoted users' explicit consent.
Engaging in spamming activities, such as repeatedly sending unsolicited messages, LLMs (Large Language Models) output, advertisements, or promotional content to community members without previous IBM authorization.
Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional setting

Responsibilities and enforcement

The entire Qiskit community is responsible for upholding the terms of the Code of Conduct in Qiskit Community events and spaces and reporting violations if they see them. The internal Qiskit team at IBM is ultimately responsible for clarifying the standards of acceptable behavior and enforcement, and is expected to take appropriate and fair corrective action in response to any instances of unacceptable behavior.

If a participant or contributor engages in negative or harmful behavior, IBM will take any action they deem appropriate, including but not limited to issuing warnings, expulsion from an event with no refund, deleting comments, permanent banning from future events or online community, or calling local law enforcement. IBM has the right and responsibility to remove, edit, or reject comments, commits, code, wiki edits, issues, and other contributions that are not aligned to this Code of Conduct, or to temporarily or permanently ban any contributor or participant for other behaviors that they deem inappropriate, threatening, offensive, or harmful.

If you see a Code of Conduct violation:

If you feel comfortable, let the person know that what they did is not appropriate and ask them to stop and/or edit or delete their message(s) or comment(s).
If the person does not immediately stop the behavior or correct the issue, or if you're uncomfortable speaking up, flag a moderator and, if appropriate, fill out the anonymous Code of Conduct violation form.
The Qiskit Community will open an investigation upon receiving your form entry. When reporting, please include any relevant details, links, screenshots, context, or other information that may be used to better understand and resolve the situation.
If the code of conduct violation occurs at an event and requires immediate response or contains a concern about an individual attending an upcoming event, contact the event's on-call Code of Conduct point of contact listed in the event specific code of conduct document. If you don't feel comfortable speaking to the point of contact in person, fill out a Code of Conduct violation form entry and include the details of the event so that the Code of Conduct enforcement board can contact the event's on-call Code of Conduct point of contact.
If an IBM employee witnesses a Code of Conduct violation at any time, such as at events, in a Slack channel, or open source forums, it is their responsibility to file a Code of Conduct violation report.

This Code of Conduct does not supersede existing IBM corporate policies, such as the IBM Business Conduct Guidelines and IBM Business Partner Code of Conduct. IBM employees must follow IBM's Business Conduct Guidelines. IBM's business partners must follow the IBM Business Partner Code of Conduct. IBM employees concerned with a fellow IBMer's behavior should follow IBM's own internal HR reporting protocols, which include engaging the offending IBMer's manager and involving IBM Concerns and Appeals. IBM employees concerned with an IBM business partner's behavior should notify tellibm@us.ibm.com.