COMMUNITY COVENANT

Our Goal

Our community is dedicated to providing a harassment-free experience for everyone. We do not tolerate harassment of participants in any form.

General Group Rules 

• • • • Respect Everyone’s Privacy: Being part of this group requires mutual trust. Authentic, expressive discussions make groups great, but may also be sensitive and private. What’s shared in the group should stay in the group.
      • Be Kind and Courteous: We’re all in this together to create a welcoming environment. Let’s treat everyone with respect. Healthy debates are natural, but kindness is required.
      • No Promotions or Spam: Give more than you take to this group. Self-promotion, spam and irrelevant links aren’t allowed.

Applicability and Scope

This code of conduct applies to all of this community’s spaces, including public channels, private channels and direct messages, both online and off. Anyone who violates this code of conduct may be expelled from this community at the discretion of the administrators.

Toward a Welcoming and Safe Environment

We hope to create an environment in which diverse individuals can collaborate and interact in a positive and affirming way. Examples of behavior that contributes to creating this sort of environment include:

• • • • Using welcoming and inclusive language
      • Being respectful of differing viewpoints and experiences
      • Gracefully accepting constructive criticism
      • Focusing on what is best for the overall community
      • Showing empathy towards other community members

Anti-Harassment Statement

This community will not tolerate harassment of any kind. Examples of harassment include:

• • • • Offensive comments related to gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, mental illness, neuro(a)typicality, physical appearance, pregnancy status, veteran status, political affiliation, marital status, body size, age, race, national origin, ethnic origin, nationality, immigration status, language, religion or lack thereof, or other identity marker. This includes anti-Indigenous/Nativeness and anti-Blackness.
      • Unwelcome comments regarding a person’s lifestyle choices and practices, including those related to food, health, parenting, relationships, drugs, and employment.
      • Deliberate misgendering, using inappropriate pronouns, or use of “dead” or rejected names.
      • Gratuitous or off-topic sexual images or behavior in spaces where they’re not appropriate.
      • Incitement of violence towards any individual or group, including encouraging a person to commit suicide or to engage in self-harm.
      • Deliberate intimidation.
      • Stalking or following – online or in the physical world.
      • Harassing photography or recording, including logging online activity for harassment purposes.
      • Sustained disruption of discussion.
      • Patterns of inappropriate social contact, such as requesting/assuming inappropriate levels of intimacy with others.
      • Continued one-on-one communication after requests to cease.
      • Deliberate “outing” of any aspect of a person’s identity without their consent except as necessary to protect vulnerable people from intentional abuse.
      • Publication of non-harassing private communication.
      • Jokes that resemble the above, such as “hipster racism”, still count as harassment even if meant satirically or ironically.

If you have questions or concerns about these issues please feel free to message HQ or ask for an opportunity to explore the issue with a moderator and volunteers.

Reporting

If you are being harassed by a member of our community, notice that someone else is being harassed, or have any other concerns, please contact HQ, the National Board, or our CEO, Amy Vaughan.  If the person who is harassing you is on the HQ or the National Board team, they will not be involved in handling or resolving the incident.

HQ will respond to any complaint as promptly as possible we can. If you do not get a timely response (for example, if no admins are currently online) then please put your personal safety and well-being first, and consider logging out and/or contacting by email at info@togetherdigital.com.

This code of conduct applies to our community’s spaces, but if you are being harassed by a member of our community outside our spaces, we still want to know about it. We will take all good-faith reports of harassment by our members, especially the administrators, seriously. This includes harassment outside our spaces and harassment that took place at any point in time. The abuse team reserves the right to exclude people from the community based on their past behavior, including behavior outside of our spaces and behavior towards people who are not in this community.

In order to protect volunteers from abuse and burnout, we reserve the right to reject any report we believe to have been made in bad faith. Reports intended to silence legitimate criticism may be deleted without response.

Enforcement Process

Every code of conduct violation report will be treated with seriousness and care. If a member’s immediate safety and security is threatened, an individual admin may take any action that they deem appropriate, up to and including temporarily banning the offender from the community. In less urgent situations, at least two admins will discuss the offense and mutually arrive at a suitable response, which will be shared with the offender privately. Whatever the resolution that they decide upon, the decision of the admins involved in a violation case will be considered final.

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, if we believe that doing so will increase the safety of our members or the general public. We will not name harassment victims without their affirmative consent.

Consequences

Participants asked to stop any harassing behavior are expected to comply immediately. If a participant engages in harassing behavior, the administrators may take any action they deem appropriate, up to and including expulsion from the community and identification of the participant as a harasser to other members. At the discretion of the admins, or by request, one or more of the parties involved may request to discuss the violation and how to avoid similar situations in the future.

Additional Guidelines 

• • • • Stimulate conversation, be respectful of others’ views, and refrain from personal attacks.
      • Respect legitimate intellectual property rights, do not plagiarize work, and give credit to the originators of ideas.
      • Don’t share the posts of others without permission.
      • All defamatory, abusive, profane, threatening, offensive, or illegal material is strictly prohibited.
      • Discriminatory, hostile or intimidating messages or language will not be tolerated, whether based on a person’s race, ethnicity, culture, national origin, social or economic class, educational level, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, age, size, family status, political belief, religion, or mental or physical ability.
      • Internet Society strives to create and maintain a community in which people of many different backgrounds and cultures are treated with respect.
      • Be mindful and respectful of linguistic background – while the language for online discussions is mostly English (unless otherwise specified), remember not everybody is a native English speaker / writer.
      • In order to keep an online community healthy and to make it possible for people of all types to participate fully, we need to be overt in our openness, welcoming all people to contribute, and pledging in return to value them as human beings and to foster an atmosphere of kindness, cooperation, and understanding.

Who can access the Together Digital member portal?

Please note that the Together Digital member portal is to be used by members of Together Digital only. Certain workspaces within the member portal will be tailored for and restricted to certain membership types; access to these areas will be determined and approved by Together Digital staff. The Content that is displayed in your member portal will automatically vary based on your user / membership type.

What can be posted?

To ensure all interactions within the Together Digital member portal are safe and friendly, Together Digital staff will oversee the member portal activity and will review, edit, and delete any inappropriate content that has been submitted. This includes abusive or offensive language, spam, malicious files, or other disrespectful contact. To help provide a productive environment, please report any offensive or suspicious activity to Together Digital staff. Please note that not all user-submitted content is representative of Together Digital, nor does it necessarily represent the views of Together Digital, its staff or members.