Event Policies

TL;DR: Hackers Next Door is a Tech Learning Collective event, and as such the same policies enforced at all Tech Learning Collective events are also strictly enforced at the Hackers Next Door conference. Specifically and in brief, this means:

• Racism, queerphobia, transphobia, sexism, capitalist advocacy, “brogrammer,” “manarchist,” or any kind of similarly awful behavior will result in immediate removal from the venue without a refund. See our Social Rules for more information.
• We do not offer refunds.

As with all Tech Learning Collective events, our team aims to implement an environment that is purposefully crafted to remove cultural obstacles impeding our ability to learn and work constructively together in a self-directed way. To this end, this page and our Social Rules document makes explicit what is otherwise a set of implicit social norms that veteran collective members are already accustomed to.

At larger events such as the Hackers Next Door conference, we further aim to foster an environment of communal responsibility and encourage participants to horizontalize and decentralize the enforcement of our Social Rules amongst themselves.

Participant agreements and policy enforcement details

TL;DR: For the future we are creating together, we should not need to metaphorically or literally police our space, but we will not hesitate to do so in order to get there from here.

As Tech Learning Collective events (including the Hackers Next Door conference) takes place in privately-owned spaces (not public space), the buck ultimately stops with Tech Learning Collective and venue host staff.

We explicitly reserve the right to refuse entry or continued participation in the event to any person for any reason and will not hesitate to exercise this ability as we and we alone deem necessary. If a participant is asked to leave the premises by a Tech Learning Collective or venue host staff member, we will not hesitate to use all legal means available to us to ensure that they comply.

Participants should take note that we are not shy about exercising force when we need to. Again, we are willing and able to use any and all legal means available to us to enforce our event policies.

Additionally, we have no patience for “rules-lawyering,” excessive interruptions, disruptive actions, disrespectful comments, condescending attitudes, or any other behavior that we feel negatively impacts our shared space and time together. If you have attended our regular workshops, you may already be quite familiar with our badass staff’s take-no-bullshit attitude. Learn more about Tech Learning Collective staff.

Our vision is one in which:

• Conference participants feel a collective sense of responsibility rather than relying on a centralized model of authority, policing, or gatekeeping.
• Everyone can have fun, connect to each other, learn from one another, and feel at least a little bit optimistic about where we are going from here.
• We all respect one another’s emotional and physical boundaries. This means we expect that you will ask for explicit, vocalized consent before touching someone else’s body, clothes, hair, or their personal items (including and especially their laptop or phone), as well as before initiating any form of electronic correspondence including sending email, direct messages, text messages, AirDrop’ing or sending files, or making any Ethernet or TCP/IP network connections to another individual’s electronic device(s), or in any way otherwise getting all up in each other’s business.
• Participants examine any discomfort they are feeling to see if they’re being encouraged to grow. Our events may expose participants to practices and beliefs that they may not fully agree with, and this can sometimes be uncomfortable but also offer fantastic development opportunities. However, if you feel you are genuinely being threatened with some form of harm or violence, we want you to bring it to the attention of event staff and as many other participants as soon as you are safely able to do so.

Once again, please closely read our Social Rules if you have not already. Tech Learning Collective takes its mission extremely seriously and we expect participants to be at least as serious as we are about nurturing an environment free of unnecessary obstacles to getting shit done. Anyone who demonstrates that they are not right here with us about that will be reminded that they are welcome to attend a different event instead of this one.