Adapted from the GitHub Community Forum Code of Conduct.
Overview and Purpose
The GEEX platform hopes to serve the immediate and future needs of glass and glass educational programs. These immediate needs include sharing strategies of approaching glass pedagogy in the period of COVID-19, and asynchronous discussion of curricular content with an expanded intercollegiate definition of the classroom.
The GEEX Forum is a discussion board for sharing glass-specific teaching and learning strategies. Together, GEEX believes glass educators and co-learners have an exciting opportunity and responsibility to make this space into a community and common resource to be proud of.
This forum is intended to be a space dedicated to collaboration, support and dialogue. It is a public and searchable web page for connecting educators and co-learners, sharing and exploring teaching strategies, especially in the time of COVID-19, and facilitating accessibility and equity in the glass community.
With this Code of Conduct, GEEX hopes to help participants understand how best to collaborate in the GEEX Forum, what to expect from GEEX staff/admins, and what type of actions or content may result in temporary or permanent suspension from forum participation.
GEEX invites participants with various perspectives, ideas, and experiences and is committed to making this forum a welcoming environment for all.
Commitment
In the interest of fostering an open and welcoming environment, participants commit to making involvement in the GEEX Forum a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of age, body size, ability, ethnicity, gender identity and expression, level of experience, nationality, personal appearance, race, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.
Forum participants recognize that this is a publicly accessible channel. As such, participants commit to maintaining the GEEX forum as a resource for the immediate and future needs of continuing glass education through ongoing conversation and adherence to best practices.
Suggested Naming Conventions
We recommend educators include their preferred name in their username.
Guidelines and Best Practices
Be respectful and considerate.
- Be welcoming and respect each other.
- Assume that members of the forum do not have a universal experience level or background.
- Through welcoming and facilitating a wide range of practical knowledge, the ensuing conversations will necessarily improve.
- This is a public forum and resource amongst colleagues in a fairly small field. Please consider this a professional space for communication and discussion, and let that framework dictate your approach to engagement.
- Treat each other with dignity and consideration in all interactions.
- Remember to criticize ideas, not people. Avoid name-calling, ad hominem attacks, responding to a post’s tone instead of its actual content, and knee-jerk contradiction.
- If you disagree with someone, try to understand and share their feelings before you address them. Hopefully, this will promote an atmosphere where participants feel comfortable asking questions, participating in discussions, and offering input.
- Only share valuable and relevant resources to provide context.
- Any links posted in the GEEX Forum should be shared with the intent of providing relevant and appropriate information.
- Links should not be posted to simply drive traffic or attention to a site.
- Links should always be accompanied by a full explanation of the content and purpose of the link.
- Don't share sensitive information.
- Improve the discussion.
- The topics discussed here matter. Be respectful of the topics and the people discussing them, even if you disagree with some of what is being said.
- Be clear and stay on topic.
- Try to use clear language, and consider how it will be received by another person. Please note: it’s hard to convey or read tone, and sarcasm is frequently misunderstood.
- Rather than taking an existing topic in a different direction, open a new topic.
- Don’t start a topic in the wrong category.
- Don’t cross-post the same thing in multiple topics.
- Don’t post no-content replies.
- Don't "bump" posts, unless you have new and relevant information to share.
- Don’t divert a topic by changing it midstream.
- Threats of violence
- Hate speech and discrimination
- Bullying and harassment
- Impersonation
- Doxxing and invasion of privacy
- Spam
- Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional setting.
- Please remember: the GEEX Forum is a professional space and should be treated as such.
GEEX Community
If you see a problem, report it. Admins have special authority; they are responsible for this forum. Participants can also keep each other in check. With your help, admins can focus on facilitating dialogue rather than mining for inappropriate engagement.
When you see bad behavior, don’t reply. Report via "Report This Post" (or the exclamation point icon) in the upper right corner of the relevant message box. Action will be taken by admin intervention.
GEEX Staff
Each case requires a different approach, and GEEX will tailor the response to meet the needs of the situation. GEEX staff/admins will review each concern on a case-by-case basis. In each case, staff will investigate the content and surrounding context and respond as appropriate, using this Code of Conduct to guide the outcome.
Actions GEEX staff/admins may take in response to a flag or abuse report include, but are not limited to:
- GEEX Forum warning
- Content removal
- GEEX Forum account suspension
- GEEX Forum account termination
If for any reason you would like to contact GEEX staff privately regarding the forum, use the contact form on the GEEX website.
Please be considerate about contact with GEEX staff, and limit emails about the forum to address concerns about conduct. GEEX staff is not employed in an educational capacity, but rather to facilitate and maintain educational programming and engagement on the GEEX platform.
Working together, the GEEX staff and community can keep the forum a place where people feel safe to participate by being respectful of each other and their respective time.
In this pilot year, the GEEX Code of Conduct and this section specifically will be updated periodically to better reflect how participants, admins and staff engage with the forum. This is a living document intended for regular consultation and evaluation internally and externally.
Legal Notices (Terms of Use, Privacy Policy)
The GEEX forum’s privacy policy and terms of use (as of August 28, 2020).
By the end of October 2020, GEEX will update and repopulate the legal notices in the GEEX Forum Code of Conduct with more specific and easy to understand language.