Note: this is a living document. It is not etched in stone. This code represents the baseline of what the mods value. It might grow but let’s start here.

The Quick Version

The Indie Game Reading Club Slack is an online discussion space dedicated to providing an honest, discreet and harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of gender and gender identity, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, or religion/lack thereof. We do not tolerate harassment of participants in any form in this space. Participants violating these rules may be temporarily or permanently expelled at the discretion f the mods.

This Is What We Mean By Harassment

So there’s no confusion:

• Offensive comments related to gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, mental illness, neuro(a)typicality, physical appearance, body size, age, race, or religion.
• Unwelcome comments regarding a person's lifestyle choices and practices, including those related to food, health, parenting, drugs, and employment. Yes, we’re aware of “ironic” or in-joke comments. In any case, if we hear from someone, we will assume it was harassing behavior.
• Deliberate misgendering or use of 'dead' or rejected names.
• Gratuitous or off-topic sexual images or behavior inappropriate in spaces.
• Threats of violence.
• Incitement of violence towards any individual, including encouraging a person to commit suicide or to engage in self-harm.
• Deliberate intimidation.
• Stalking or following.
• Harassing photography or recording, including logging online activity for harassment purposes.
• Sustained disruption of discussion. (Please pay particular attention to this one!)
• Unwelcome sexual attention.
• Pattern 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.

The Safety and Comfort of Marginalized People Is A Priority

Toward that end, we will not act on complaints about:

• 'Reverse' -isms, including 'reverse racism,' 'reverse sexism,' and 'cisphobia'.
• Reasonable communication of boundaries, such as "leave me alone," "go away," or "I'm not discussing this with you".
• Communicating in a 'tone' you don't find congenial.
• Criticizing racist, sexist, cissexist, or otherwise oppressive behavior or assumptions.

Policies and Best Practices

Go browse all the channels (look under "add channels" at the end of the Channels list). There are many many channels! I'm in the midst of reorganizing that a little, but until that happens, I advise you sign up for everything and drop out if you get bored/frustrated with any of them. IIRC you're only signed in for #community, #gaming-talk and #random. There's a ton of action outside of those spaces as well.

We're aggressive about using replies to thread conversations. So, not like Discord, right? It's the only thing keeping the long-form topics sane in here.

If you post a reply by mistake as a fresh post and it's obviously meant to be a reply, someone might put a :thread: emoji on it to let you know. Just c/p it back into the correct thread and delete, please.

Last and most important one! IGRC exists to be honest and discreet. This means:

• No screencaps
• No copy/pasting content from here to public social media. 
• No discussing what’s been discussed in here without permission.

Sometimes hard conversations can be misconstrued or deliberately taken out of context.

And that's it! Traditionally the person who vouched for you introduces you in #community. Please wait until you’ve been introduced before participating.

Need Help?

Please contact any of our three mods via DM or whatever method of your choosing:

• Paul Beakley
• Jahmal (Mad Jay) Brown
• Jesse Abelman