Code of Conduct

Friends With Benefits is committed to fostering a friendly, safer, and comfortable environment for all, regardless of sex, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, mental illness, neuro(a)typicality, physical appearance, race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, age, or level of experience.

Members are expected to proactively support the creation of a safer environment within the FWB server.

Our Goal

The goal of this document is to set the overall tone for our community. This isn't an exhaustive list of things you can and can't do. Rather, take this document in the spirit in which it's intended, and try to be your best self. We want to nurture a culture that is healthy and hospitable to all.

Examples of encouraged behavior by members include:
  • Being kind and courteous to others
  • Using welcoming and inclusive language
  • Acknowledging preferred gender pronouns
  • Being respectful of differing viewpoints and experiences
  • Collaborating with other community members
  • Gracefully accepting constructive criticism
  • Focusing on what is best for the community
  • Approaching and listening to others in good faith and leading with empathy
Examples of unacceptable behavior by members include (but are not limited to):
  • Implicitly or explicitly offensive comments related to sex, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, mental illness, neuro(a)typicality, physical appearance, race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, or age
  • Unwelcome comments regarding a person's lifestyle choices and practices, including those related to food, health, parenting, drugs, and employment
  • Disregarding preferred gender pronouns, or use of 'dead' or rejected names
  • Gratuitous or off-topic sexual images or messages, including the use of explicit or violent sexual language colloquially
  • Unwanted simulated physical contact (e.g. textual descriptions like "hug" or "backrub")
  • Threats or incitement of violence of any kind, including encouraging an individual to commit suicide or to engage in self-harm
  • Deliberate intimidation
  • Unwelcome sexual attention
  • Sustained disruption of discussion
  • Harassment, including persistent attempts to communicate with someone (publicly or privately) after requests are ignored or otherwise declined
  • Publication of non-harassing private communication (e.g. screenshots of personal exchanges) or private personal information (e.g. name, location, identifying details)

Scope

This Code of Conduct applies to all spaces managed by or related to an individual's status as a member of Friends With Benefits. This includes (but is not limited to) the Discord server itself, IRL FWB meet-ups and events, Metaverse spaces, and collaborative platforms utilized for FWB projects like Miro, Notion, Figma, and Google Docs. Violations of this code outside of these spaces may also affect a person's ability to participate within them.

The FWB Code of Conduct applies equally to all members of the community, including staff.

Reporting An Issue

Users who wish to report an issue can open a ticket using the submission form.

Our moderation team will review the submission as promptly as possible and address the issue to the best of its abilities.

You may be contacted by an anonymous FWB Mod account in a private channel visible only to you and the moderator(s) to ask for additional information if it is required.

Moderation Procedures

The FWB mods are an anonymous committee made up of community members that have volunteered and been approved to help evaluate conflicts, with an eye towards reaching resolutions that uphold the community's values and that reach towards a restorative approach rather than a punitive one as much as possible.

There will be three mods, selected randomly from a pool of applicants that have been pre-screened by the Membership Committee in a blind review process. The approved applicants will be compensated and rotated out on a bi-seasonal basis; they will be under a confidentiality agreement to protect the privacy of parties involved in disputes, and will also be expected to recuse themselves from mediating any issues in which they have a conflict of interest.

Moderator decisions are issued in written form by a Mediator that does not partake in the moderation process directly. They serve as a neutral liaison and point of contact for involved parties.

Decisions can be appealed through the same Mediator, providing members a second chance at explaining a situation to a second set of approved moderators who were not involved in the initial decision. There is only one appeal allowed per case.

Participants asked to stop any harassing behavior are expected to comply immediately.

If a participant continues to engage in harassing behavior, the admins may take any action they deem appropriate, up to and including expulsion from the server.

Attribution

This code of conduct documentation draws from the following antecedents: Annalee Flower Horne's Sample Slack Code of Conduct, Geek Feminism's Community Anti-Harassment Policy, Python's Discord Code of Conduct.