Social Rules

In addition to having a code of conduct, we have a set of social rules. The social rules are different and separate from the code of conduct. They help us create a better environment by giving names to counterproductive behavior and acting as a release valve so that frustration doesn’t build up over time.

We expect people to unintentionally break the social rules from time to time. Doing this doesn’t make you a bad person or a bad member of the community. You should just apologize and move on.

We won’t give you a formal warning or expel you from TBLGAY just for breaking a social rule once. However, given repeated instances of breaking our social rules and an unwillingness to grow to follow them, we may begin to consider your actions as Unwelcoming Behavior and take stronger actions.

If you have any questions about any part of the code of conduct or social rules, please reach out to any Collective member.

Online Etiquette

• Stay on topic or move to a different channel: Sometimes the topic naturally shifts throughout a conversation. Be mindful of what you’re discussing in what channel and move if necessary.
• Don’t interrupt ongoing conversations: If there’s an active conversation in #genderal-1, you may only start a new one in #genderal-2 or #genderal-3. If one of the specialty channels like #food is busy, make use of our overflow channel #anything.

• Mind the environment: Constantly yelling over each other makes for an overwhelming environment, so keep your limit at about two or so all caps sentences in a row. Excitement is more than welcome, but try to express it with italics, bold, exclamation marks, and emojis instead.

  Additionally, don’t talk over others or overwhelm them with rapid-fire questions. Rather, allow them the time and space to properly process and respond to what you said. Not everyone types at the same speed and some of us use accessibility tools that might require extra time, but everyone deserves the chance to speak and be heard.

  To maintain a non-overwhelming environment, we urge everyone to use and follow both tempcheck and the pause emoji.

• Use tone indicators when necessary: Tone can be fairly ambiguous over text. Adding a tone indicator at the end of your message can help others better understand what you mean. While this isn’t needed after every sentence, it’s important to add them onto messages that might be misinterpreted, such as play-fighting, or when asked to clarify.

  Common tone indicators include:

  • /gen = genuine
  • /srs = serious
  • /nm = not mad
  • /pos = positive
  • /neg = negative
  • /j = joking
  • /hj = half joking
  • /lh = light hearted
  • /s = sarcastic
• When interacting with others in #vents-channel :
  • Keep it serious. If you’re making a joke, it probably shouldn’t interrupt someone in vents.
  • Ask before offering advice or put it behind a spoiler in case the person doesn’t want it.
  • Don’t recenter the conversation to be about yourself. Sharing your own experiences can be a powerful tool for empathizing with others; but keep in mind that the goal is not to vent your own frustrations.
  • Wait your turn. Everyone deserves the time and space to be heard, so if someone has just posted a vent, try and wait at least 15 minutes before posting your own so as to not talk over them.
  • Do not vent, subpost, or vague about other server members. If you need to vent about someone on the server, do it elsewhere so as to not cause any unnecessary drama.

Be aware of who’s listening.

The TBLGAY server has several hundred members, many of whom lurk without saying anything in chat, and new people joining every day.

Not everyone knows who you are or what your situation is, so try not to make any inside jokes that could be misinterpreted badly. For example, calling your friend by a nickname that might read as mean without context or accusing them of something that they pretend to hate. To a newcomer who doesn’t know the context, this might look like bullying, and give the wrong impression about the kind of place this is.

Remember that we’re all here to learn.

No one knows everything and everyone makes mistakes. Allow yourself to be corrected and give others the benefit of the doubt in turn.

No acting surprised about someone not knowing something

Carol: Wait, you didn’t know where the Ross Building was?

Responding with surprise when someone doesn’t know something makes people feel bad for not knowing things and less likely to ask questions in the future, which makes it harder for them to learn. Even if you are legitimately surprised that someone doesn’t know something, it has the same effect. Don’t feign surprise and then post a clarification right afterwards– that’s still bad.

[Further reading: https://jvns.ca/blog/2017/04/27/no-feigning-surprise/]

No backseat driving

Eve: (after pages of discussion about Hormone Replacement Therapy) Why are you taking oral estrogen? Injections are better.

Backseat driving is when you lob advice without really joining or engaging in a conversation. Because you haven’t been participating in the conversation, it’s easy to miss something important and give advice that’s not actually helpful. Even if your advice is correct, it’s rude to burst into a conversation with unsolicited advice without asking. If you overhear a conversation where you could be helpful, the best thing to do is to ask to join.

No subtle -isms

Carol: Windows is hard to use.

Bob: No way. Windows is so easy to use that even my mom can use it.

Subtle -isms are subtle expressions of racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia, transphobia and other kinds of bias and prejudice. They are small things that make others feel unwelcome, things that we all sometimes do or say by mistake. Subtle -isms make people feel like they don’t belong in TBLGAY. We want to create an environment where everyone can rest from the pressures we suffer, daily. It’s hard to do that if you’re regularly being made to wonder whether you belong.

This social rule is more complicated than the others. Not everyone agrees on what constitutes a subtle -ism. Subtle -isms are baked into society in ways that can make them hard to recognize. And not everyone experiences subtle -isms in the same way: subtle homophobia won’t hurt someone who’s straight in the same way it hurts someone who’s gay.