The Thread Code of Conduct

The Thread [the community] is a community experience organized and offered by Slow Works Ltd [Slow Works, us, we].

Our pledge

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

This code of conduct applies to all The Thread spaces, chiefly but not limited to the letters written, both online and off. Anyone who violates this code of conduct may be sanctioned or expelled from these spaces at the discretion of Slow Works.

In the interest of fostering an open and welcoming environment, we as the organizers and hosts of The Thread pledge to make participation in our project and our community a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of age, body size, disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, gender identity and expression, level of experience, education, socio-economic status, nationality, personal appearance, race, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.

Any information received from other members of The Thread should be treated as confidential, including their mailing address, names and the letters you receive.

Our standards

To allow everyone on The Thread to get the most out of the shared experience, we rely on everyone to be considerate in what and how they share. We encourage going deep and reflecting on topics that feel difficult to explore, however, we won't tolerate personal attacks or harassment.

You're free to write anything you want in the letters to yourself, as you'll be the only person reading those letters. While it's wise to use welcoming, non-violent language in any situation, please use those letters you are writing to yourself to explore any ideas that might offend or trigger others. In the shared letters to other members of The Thread and any other public space, we expect everyone to be respectful, kind, and considerate.

Examples of behavior that contributes to creating a positive environment include:

  • Writing about yourself, your feelings and experience, without passing judgment on other people or groups.
  • Using "I statements", like "I feel", "I wonder" or "I struggle with" rather than absolute statements like "it is" or "they are"
  • Using welcoming and inclusive language
  • Being respectful of differing viewpoints and experiences
  • Gracefully accepting constructive criticism
  • Focusing on what is best for the community
  • Showing empathy towards other community members
  • Keeping personal details and the content of the letters of other community members confidential

Examples of unacceptable behavior by participants include:

  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Stalking or following.
  • Harassing photography or recording, including logging online activity for harassment purposes.
  • Sustained disruption of discussion.
  • Unwelcome sexual attention.
  • 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 (including publication of the letters received).
  • Sharing personal details of any other member (e.g. names or addresses) without their explicit consent.

If you are being harassed by a member of The Thread, notice that someone else is being harassed, or have any other concerns, please contact our harassment officer at harassment@slow.works or using the contact form below. If the person who is harassing you is on the team, they will recuse themselves from handling your incident. We will respond as promptly as we can.

This code of conduct applies to The Thread spaces, but if you are being harassed by a member of The Thread outside our spaces, we still want to know about it. We will take all good-faith reports of harassment by The Thread members, seriously.

In order to protect our staff 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.

Consequences

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

If a participant engages in harassing behavior, Slow Works may take any action they deem appropriate, up to and including expulsion from all The Thread spaces and identification of the participant as a harasser to other The Thread members or the general public. Members expelled for harassment or abuse lose all rights to a refund or compensation.

Legal Notices

Yes, legalese is boring, but we must protect ourselves – and by extension, you and your data – against unfriendly folks. We have a Terms of Service and our Privacy Policy describing your (and our) behavior and rights related to content, privacy, and laws. To use this service, you must agree to abide by our Terms of Service, and the Privacy Policy.

This Code of Conduct does not modify our Terms of Service and is not intended to be a complete list. Slow Works retains full discretion under the Terms of Service to remove or restrict any content or accounts for activity that violates those policies, including because it is unlawful, offensive, threatening, libelous, defamatory, pornographic, obscene or otherwise objectionable, or violates any party's intellectual property or our Terms of Service. This Code of Conduct describes when we will exercise that discretion.

License and attribution

This policy is licensed under the Creative Commons Zero license. It is public domain, no credit and no open licencing of your version is required.

Parts of this code of conduct and anti-harassment policy is based on the example policy, created by the Geek Feminism community and the Github community forum code of conduct