Community Guidelines

The World of Vesser community exists to allow people to play games, interact with the worldbuilders, writers, and performers who bring the world to life, and create the next generation of interconnected stories across media.

Our current moderation team includes:

• Hae-jin Marshall (@yihaejin)
• Tanner Hearne (@tannerhearne)
• Danielle Smith (@eqmaeve)
• Anne Houck (@expeditianne)

We want this to be a fun, pleasant, and harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, age, income, housing status, physical appearance, body size, race, or religion. We do not tolerate abusive behaviors or harassment of members of our community in any form. Members are expected to comply immediately when requested to stop any unwanted interactions with other members. The moderation team should be notified anytime a member of this community fails to honor requests to stop an interaction.

Over time, the moderation team will be made up of both World of Vesser community members and staff members. The moderation team consults with itself to decide proportional warnings or bans based on each reported case of violations of these guidelines.

These guidelines are not restricted to inside community interactions. It seems reasonable to the community that we should maintain healthy communication and healthy boundaries everywhere. Being a part of this community means living at this standard everywhere.

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A Few Things To Start

• As a general rule, do not comment on anyone's appearance on-camera, either positive or negative. This is an easy way we can work together to make sure everyone feels welcome.
• Refrain from using stills of staff members or stream/video guests as reaction images.
• Avoid @mentioning and @replying folks with the "No @please" role in Discord. This is especially important as the community grows.
• Regarding feedback, suggestions, or submissions please refer to the Terms of Service that are in place for all community members.

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Confidentiality

Please be mindful that things you say here may at some point become public. We cannot guarantee that every member's login credentials and logged-in devices are secure. Please exercise caution and refrain from sharing sensitive information that could harm you or others if it became public.

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Logs and Records

Files uploaded here can be downloaded by anyone with a login. Please exercise caution and refrain from sharing sensitive information that could harm you or others if it became public.

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Harassment

Harassment includes:

• Offensive comments related to gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, mental illness, neuro(a)typicality, physical appearance, body size, race, or religion
• Unwelcome comments regarding a person’s lifestyle choices and practices, including those related to food, health, parenting, drugs, and employment
• Deliberate misgendering or use of ‘dead’ or rejected names
• Gratuitous or off-topic sexual images or behavior in spaces where they’re not appropriate
• Threats of violence
• Incitement of violence towards any individual, including encouraging a person to commit suicide or to engage in self-harm
• Deliberate intimidation
• Sustained disruption of discussion
• Unwelcome sexual attention
• Continued one-on-one communication after a request to stop
• Publication of non-harassing private communication

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Reporting

If you are being harassed, notice that someone else is being harassed, or have any other concerns, please contact our moderation team by direct messaging ModMail on Discord.

Direct messaging ModMail allows our entire moderation team to review, respond, and discuss any issues quickly and effectively. ModMail is a bot that will show up on any public channel and is made for community communication to moderators. It makes communication way easier than Discord’s built in tools. You can find out more about ModMail here.

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. We will not name harassment victims without their affirmative consent.

You can review the #moderator-updates channel in Discord for some of this type of communication. The moderation team may also decide to handle the issue privately.

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Consequences

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

If a participant engages in harassing behavior, the moderation team may take any action they deem appropriate, up to and including expulsion from this server and identifying the participant publicly as someone about whom we've received complaints.

Here is our basic framework:

1. Warning - a warning to instruct and prevent crossing further boundaries explained in these Community Guidelines
2. 7 Day Ban - the member will receive a DM and then be removed from the server. After 7 days they can apply for re-admittance to the community.
3. 30 Day Ban - the member will receive a DM and then be removed from the server. After 30 days they can apply for re-admittance to the community.
4. Permanent Ban - the member will receive a DM and then be removed from the server. At this time the moderation team will not review applications for return if someone has been permanently banned.

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Application for Re-admittance

Applications for re-admittance are important because World of Vesser offers a learning community. If you have received a ban from the moderation team, we ask that you examine why it happened and if you want to talk in DMs about your ban please ask questions. Unfortunately many people get banned and are defensive in their response messages instead of asking questions. Review any messages you send and count the question marks. Without questions, your response may show you lack curiosity or the interest in growing personally.

Why is it important to ask questions instead of being defensive? A number of people and leaders in the community have just given you a strong message via a ban that something about your behavior needs to change. We care about you and this is a safe way for you to grow. It is often uncomfortable to receive constructive criticism, but if you lean into it and trust that multiple people thoughtfully deliberated over whether to issue a ban, you may find something you can unlock to help yourself personally and help you communicate with others more constructively inside and outside of the community.

Now, to the practicals:

After the ban time period has passed (7 or 30 days) you can then apply for re-admittance by sending your application to team@vesser.com. The moderation team will then review your application and have the option to approve or reject your application.

Application Outline:

1. Why were you banned?
2. What guideline(s) did you overstep?
3. What steps are you taking to change your communication/actions to better respect the Community Guidelines?
4. Is there anything else you’ve reflected on during your period away from the community that this process has illuminated for you?

Send your response to those application questions to team@vesser.com after your ban period has passed.

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Credits and License

Some people are really awesome and we have many to thank for this set of Community Guidelines. This document is based on Annalee Flower Horne's Sample Slack Code of Conduct, which is in turn based on Geek Feminism's Community Anti-Harassment Policy. We have adapted the Sample Slack Code of Conduct for our own use under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.

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