Code of Conduct
We want this to be a fun, pleasant, and harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, or religion. We do not tolerate harassment of participants in any form. Participants asked to stop any harassing behavior are expected to comply immediately. If someone asks you to leave them alone, leave them alone.
Do
- Talk about/link to what you’re reading, working on, listening to, watching
- Post your blog post, code snippet, article, book chapter, presentation
- Ask for help
- Post pictures of your food, cat, dog, baby, signage, face. Show us the awesome/boring/terrible thing on your desk right now.
- Use descriptive text on your images
- Credit the images and art you share (ideally with a link)
- Add CWs (content warnings) to your posts liberally: label talks about politics or hate incidents, listserv commentary, rants, spoilers of TV shows, etc. CWs are metadata. We love metadata! (see FAQ for more about CWs)
Don’t
The following behavior is not welcome anywhere in digipres.club:
- Offensive comments related to gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, mental illness, neuro(a)typicality, physical appearance, body size, race, nationality, or religion.
- Holocaust denial and Nazi symbolism.
- Deliberate or persistent misgendering.
- Threats of violence.
- Incitement of violence towards any individual, including encouraging a person to commit suicide or to engage in self-harm.
- Deliberate intimidation.
- Publishing any individual's address, phone number, or other private identifying information without consent.
- Sexual depictions of children.
- Unwelcome sexual attention, including sharing sexual content with specific users without consent.
- Gratuitous sexual images or behavior without a content warning.
- Simulated physical contact (e.g. textual descriptions like “*hug*” or “*backrub*”) without consent or after a request to stop.
- Publication of non-harassing private communication without consent.
- Sustained disruption of discussion.
- Impersonation of living persons
- Continued communications with someone who's asked that you leave them alone.
- Unwelcome comments regarding a person’s lifestyle choices and practices, including those related to food, health, parenting, drugs, and employment.
The following behavior is not allowed on the public timeline:
- Graphic violent or sexual content without a content warning
- Gratuitous advertizing or spam. It's fine to promote your work, but it shouldn't be the bulk of what you share.
Known Harassers:
The admins may ban or silence users whom we know to be harassers or abusers, even if they have not violated the rules of this instance. The mere presence of a harasser can make past or potential victims uncomfortable, and it can put potential victims who are unaware of the person's history in particular danger. Users are encouraged to individually mute, block, and/or report accounts they don't want to see, but at our discretion, we may take the additional step of blocking or silencing someone instance-wide if we believe they endanger the safe and welcoming space we're trying to maintain.
Reporting
The current admins are:
If you are being harassed, notice that someone else is being harassed, or have any other concerns, please contact the admins. They'll respond as promptly as they can. We 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 harassment complaints, or privately warn third parties about them. We will not name harassment victims without their affirmative consent.
Understanding and Using CWs
Mastodon offers content warnings, which allow one to post about topics while giving others an informed opportunity to decide whether or not to read your posts. Think of them as metadata for your post. Unlike hashtags, which are another great way to find or filter data (and you can use both!), CWs allow the reader to make a choice before viewing something which they may find distressing (such as racist imagery or political trends which threaten their health/job/family/friends) or ordinary things they may or may not want to see “health” or “lewd” or “rant/whine” posts. CWs are especially important on public posts, since we all use the Local timeline. Some people write very descriptive CWs. Others use shorthands popular in the Mastodon community. Common examples of CWd topics and common shorthands:
- Politics: “pol” with a country prefix such “uspol,” “ukpol” or more specific clarifications, such as “politics, funding” or “politics shutdown” or “politics, 45”
- Examples of hate speech by politicians/colleagues/family/students/etc.: “Hate speech” “nazis” “fascism” “antifacism” “racism” “transphobia” “white supremacist fliers”
- Sexually explicit: common shorthands include “lewd,” “kink,” “PDA”
- Mental health/suicidal ideation: common abbreviations include “mh+” (good mental health stuff), “mh-” (negative mental health), “suicide”/”sui”
- Food/alcohol/drugs/meds: generally just noting the content.
- Eye-contact selfies: some mastodon users place selfies under “eye contact” if the poster is making eye contact with the viewer1.
- Content types: “rant” “long” “whine” “spoilers”
An excellent longer-form CW example from 2018-01-22 would be “nazis on campus, everyday antifacism,” which conveys that the post both talks about an incident with nazis on campus and the response to it. Please also keep in mind, that all posts to Public appear in the Local timeline and Mastodon allows you to make some posts Followers-Only or Unlisted. On the other hand, if you see someone posting material which disturbs you without CWs in the main timeline, Mastodon’s mute function will mean you don’t see them. Filters can remove all posts containing a term (CWd and non-CWd) from a particular column.
Credits and License
This code of conduct is based on glammr.us’ code of conduct, which is in turn based on wandering.shop's code of conduct, which itself is based on Annalee Flower Horne's Sample Slack Code of Conduct and Geek Feminism's Community Anti-Harassment Policy.