Reading Indie Gamers

Code of Conduct

Reading Indie Gamers (RIG) is a gaming community. Everyone participating in Reading Indie Gamers including, but not limited to our Discord Server, social media, and face to face gaming events, is required to agree to this Code of Conduct.

RIG is dedicated to providing a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, mental illness, neurotype, physical appearance, body, age, race, ethnicity, nationality, language, or religion. We do not tolerate harassment of participants in any form.

Participating in RIG constitutes acknowledgement and acceptance to abide by this Code of Conduct in both digital and physical spaces.

Anyone who violates this Code of Conduct may be sanctioned or expelled from RIG spaces.

Principles

In accordance with our Code of Conduct, everyone who participates in Reading Indie Gamers shall function within the following principles:

Safety

All games run within our community must use, explain, and support safety tools. This isn't to eliminate challenging content, but to make sure that everyone knows the bounds and has given consent.

Consideration

That safety doesn't end at the gaming table, or with formal safety tools. We ask when in our spaces you consider your words and their impact. It is vital that members can offer opinions and discuss issues, but that should be done in a spirit of support, kindness, and inclusivity. Think about your intent and act in those spaces with integrity and love. Be positive and supportive of others as you would hope they would be of you.

Inclusivity

Community members must be supportive and inclusive. They should think about the impact of their words, the privilege they hold, and the relative position of those they interact with. As a community we prioritise marginalised people's safety above privileged people's comfort and will make all reasonable efforts to be inclusive.

Guidelines

In the course of exemplifying the Community Principles, all members of our community shall function within the following guidelines:

Respect player pronouns and character pronouns; routinely reaffirm these throughout play and at the start of any game.
Practice regular check-ins for enthusiastic consent of game content.
Respect player autonomy and practice regular check-ins to affirm enthusiastic agreement of narrative game development.
Clearly declare the concept, aim, tone, & subject matter (including clear content warnings) of every game played through Reading Indie Gamers.
Explain and incorporate some form of tools for safe play (e.g. X-Card, Lines & Veils, etc) into every game shared.

Tools

Games organized through the Reading Indie Gamers must use tools for safe, welcoming play. We recommend that all members read the TTRPG Safety Toolkit curated by Kienna Shaw and Lauren Bryant-Monk.

We also strongly recommend that community members read Accessibility in Tabletop curated by Jennifer Kretchmer.

Definitions

Harassment includes:

Offensive comments related to gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, mental illness, neurotype, physical appearance, body, age, race, ethnicity, nationality, language, or religion.
Unwelcome comments regarding a person's lifestyle choices and practices, including those related to food, health, parenting, drugs, and employment.
Deliberate use of incorrect name or pronouns, including misgendering or use of ‘dead’ or rejected names.
Gratuitous or off-topic sexual images or behaviour in spaces where they're not appropriate.
Physical contact and simulated physical contact (eg, textual descriptions like “hug” or “backrub”) without consent or after a request to stop.
Making intentionally false communications, either written, spoken, or posted on any social media, that harms a member.
Stealing or misappropriation of any property (including digital) belonging to another member or the community, including all materials developed for or on behalf of the community without the express permission of the member.
Acting in a manner that endangers the health or safety of another person.
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, including both physical and digital spaces.
Harassing photography or recording, including logging online activity for harassment purposes.
Sustained disruption of discussion.
Unwelcome sexual attention.
Patterns 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 other community members or other vulnerable people from intentional abuse.

As a community, we prioritise marginalised people's safety above privileged people's comfort. To that effect, The community reserves the right to not act on retaliatory complaints or other attempts to weaponize this Code of Conduct or other community processes. Such bad faith actions include, but are not limited to:

Complaints of ‘reverse’-isms, including ‘reverse racism’, ‘reverse sexism’, and ‘cisphobia’.
Complaints against the reasonable communication of boundaries, such as ‘leave me alone’, ‘go away’, or ‘I'm not discussing this with you’.
Complaints of someone communicating in a ‘tone’ you don't find congenial.
Complaints against criticisms of racist, sexist, cissexist, or otherwise oppressive behaviour or assumptions.

Reporting

If you experience disrespectful or harassing behaviour by a member of the community, notice that someone else is being disrespected or harassed, or have any other concerns, please immediately contact one of the Organisation Team on our Discord Server.

Enforcement & Consequences

Participants asked to modify their behaviour are expected to comply immediately.

Any and all complaints received by the organisation team are investigated and steps are taken to minimise harm to participants. If requested, we will endeavour to protect the confidentiality of a complainant to the fullest extent possible.

If the person who is harassing you is a member of the organisation team, either officially or in an ancillary capacity, they will not be involved in handling the incident.

You should be assured that there will be no retaliation against you for making good faith claims.

Thanks and Attribution

This policy was taken from the Edinburgh Indie Gamers Code of Conduct and modified to suit the needs of Reading Indie Gamers.

EIG has generously licnesed theirs under the CC BY 4.0 licenese. Our adaptation is licensed likewise.

Their license was attributed to the following groups: