Whether you use our website, follow our social media accounts, are members of our Facebook groups or attend in-person events we organise, you are required to abide by this code of conduct.
This is an inclusive space
We want you to feel safe and welcome regardless of your gender, ethnicity, (dis)ability, sexual orientation or other identity.
We will not tolerate degrading comments about race, religion, heritage, sexual orientation, gender, body type/size or other identities. We will not tolerate comments supporting white supremacy. We will not tolerate anything else that makes members of our community feel unwelcome or unsafe.
Violating these rules may result in being permanently blocked and any content you have posted being removed.
If you see something offensive
Please contact us straight away – don’t assume that we have seen it already. We are a very small team, we are online for a few hours a day and are not able to monitor all channels in real time.
What will we do?
It depends on the type of incident.
While we want to educate those whose language or behaviour is inadvertently problematic, our first priority is to protect members of our community and ensure that everyone feels safe.
Comments that we deem likely to cause distress to other members of our community will be deleted without warning. Authors of offensive or hateful content may be blocked without warning. At our in-person events, anyone making other people feel unwelcome or unsafe will be asked to leave.
In other cases, for reasons of transparency, we may leave a comment in place with an accompanying admin note.
Some examples of when this might apply: Using ableist language, such as “lame” to mean bad; white-centred terms such as using “flesh coloured” to mean peach or beige, or gender-exclusive language, such as using “ladies” of people whose genders you don’t know. These things often fall under the category of microaggressions.
We are all learning, and when this happens our approach is to do the work to help that person change, rather than to shame them or immediately write them off. Our policy is to contact the author privately to discuss the problem in the first instance, giving them the opportunity to edit their words and/or apologise, as appropriate. However, repeat offenders will be blocked.
Bullying and harassment
The following behaviours that we consider bullying:
- Sending unsolicited, unwanted direct messages or emails to other members of our online community
- Revealing personal information or contact details of other members of our online community (“doxxing”) – this is illegal and will be reported to the police
- Posts attacking/shaming private individuals
These behaviours will not be tolerated, and will be dealt with as above.
We don’t consider calling out racism or other hate speech or problematic language to be bullying. We do ask that you report anything offensive to us so that we are aware, even if you want to respond to it yourself.
How are comments moderated?
On our website, comments are mainly pre-moderated but return visitors comments are post-moderated. On other platforms, posts are post-moderated, meaning that we don’t see them before they are published.
We are a small team, are online for a few hours a day and do not have the resources to monitor the web and social media 24/7, but we are dedicated to addressing issues as quickly and thoroughly as is humanly possible.