Code of Conduct
In short: be respectful when interacting within my community and spaces.
People have different backgrounds, and different notions of what it means “to be respectful”. It’s even more complicated as it changes with context and who’s involved in a conversation. Teasing a close friend can be perfectly respectful, while teasing a stranger would likely not be. This short page is meant to just set up this shared set of basic conduct guidelines for everyone, so we can all have a good time and be less worried about breaking vaguely-defined rules.
Be welcoming. There are all kinds of people in the world, and they all come together online. Everyone should be able to have a positive experience, regardless of their age, sexuality, gender identity and expression, body size, disability, ethnicity, race, experience, religion, nationality, or physical appearance. Don’t make fun of people—especially people you don’t know—for simply being who they are.
Sometimes you and your friends may like teasing each other, and making fun of each other. That’s perfectly fine among yourselves, but try to keep it in more private or restricted spaces; otherwise, be mindful of making other people uncomfortable with it. If someone says they’re uncomfortable, just apologise and move on.
Respect boundaries. Different people have different boundaries. They have different things they’re comfortable and not comfortable with. And that’s perfectly fine. As much as possible, try to be mindful of other people’s boundaries, and respect them. Sometimes, however, we’ll end up making people uncomfortable or hurting them without really meaning to. That sucks for both parties—though particularly for the person made uncomfortable or hurt. Again, in these cases, apologise, own your mistake, try not repeating it in the future, and move on.
Making unsolicited sexual comments, or giving unsolicited explanations are generally things that will violate the other person’s boundaries. Especially if you don’t know them. Always be mindful of consent.
Keep sexual content out of public spaces. Some people like sexual content, and there’s nothing really wrong with them enjoying it. However, public spaces are meant to be spaces for everyone—including children and people who would rather not see sexual content (ever or just at some particular moments). This means that public spaces are not appropriate spaces for this kind of content. Keep sexual content in restricted or in private spaces where everyone participating in it has agreed to such content.
Don’t harass people. Attacking and/or harassing people (or groups of people) is not cool, and completely unacceptable in any space I manage. Here, understand “harassing” as repeatedly (or intentionally) violating someone’s boundaries, even after that person made it clear that they aren’t cool with your actions. Harassing will get you a warning. Repeated harassing will get you banned from all community spaces. Although in particularly extreme cases you may be removed from a space without a warning.
Don’t share other people’s information without their permission. It’s not cool. And in the case of sharing people’s private information, it can put them in danger—even if that was not what you intended.