Policies

Code of Conduct

Overview

CON.TXT is dedicated to being a safer, welcoming, and enjoyable space for all attendees. We count on everyone to help create that space by respecting your fellow attendees’ physical and social boundaries, accessibility needs, and identities. 

We do not tolerate harassment or bullying in any form. Anyone violating these rules may be warned or removed from the convention without a refund at the discretion of the convention committee. 

The Code of Conduct applies to everyone in CON.TXT spaces, including convention attendees, volunteers, staff, and vendors. While we do not monitor behavior outside convention spaces, repeated and/or egregious violations of the Code of Conduct that occur outside convention spaces may result in sanctions up to and including a permanent ban.

Code of Conduct

This Code of Conduct isn’t an exhaustive list of behavior that is or is not allowed at CON.TXT. Instead, it is a guide to help us make the convention a safer and more welcoming space for everyone.

  1. Attendees must be 18 years of age or older. By registering for CON.TXT events, online or in-person, you affirm that you will be 18 years old on or before the day of the event.
  2. Treat others with respect. This includes, but is not limited to, addressing people by their provided names and pronouns and respecting any socialization preferences, boundaries, and triggers communicated to you.
  3. Be aware of how much conversational space you take up and allow room for others to speak. In panels, allow moderators to steer discussion.
  4. All con attendees must be immediately identifiable at all times. Your username across all virtual con spaces and platforms should include the name under which you registered. You may contact the convention committee prior to the start of the convention to change your registration name. Misrepresenting your identity is strictly prohibited.
  5. State your badge name before speaking in a discussion so that people are able to identify who is speaking.
  6. Don’t share any attendee’s comments from Zoom or Discord without their express permission. You may paraphrase discussions or share unattributed “overheard” comments, but do not connect someone’s written or spoken comments with their name or social media handle without permission. If permission is granted, attribute comments using the attendee’s badge name only.
  7. Do not take any screenshots, photos, or videos at CON.TXT without explicit permission from everyone in those images or recordings. Attendees may not make any audio or video recordings during panels.
  8. Do not bring any unregistered guests into CON.TXT spaces.

Unacceptable behavior

The following behaviors are unacceptable in our community:

  • Violence, threats of violence, or violent language directed against another person
  • Sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, fatphobic, ableist, or otherwise discriminatory jokes and language. Minor, unintentional microaggressions or mistakes are not Code of Conduct violations. However, repeating something after it has been pointed out to you or antagonizing or arguing with someone who has pointed out your error is a violation
  • Posting or threatening to post someone’s personally identifying information (“doxxing”)
  • Personal insults of any kind, but particularly those related to gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, or disability
  • Photographing, recording, taking screenshots, or copying text transcripts in con spaces without explicit permission from everyone in the space being recorded. This applies even if the convention is officially recording a panel or event. In addition, approved convention recordings may not be reposted anywhere or shared with non-attendees
  • Inappropriate physical contact. You should have someone’s consent before touching them
  • Unwelcome sexual attention (this includes sexualized comments or jokes, inappropriate touching, groping, and unwelcome sexual advances)
  • Deliberate intimidation or stalking (online or in person)
  • Sustained disruption of CON.TXT events, including panels and vid shows
  • Advocating for, or encouraging, any of the above behavior

Enforcement

Anyone asked to stop behavior that violates the Code of Conduct is expected to do so immediately.

The safety team will take action depending on the severity of the incident, the individual’s prior history both inside and outside con spaces, and other relevant factors. Actions taken may include warnings and temporary or permanent bans from con participation.

When immediate action is required, any con committee member may remove posting access from the person in question and/or eject the person from con spaces based on their assessment of the incident. In these cases the Safety team will follow up afterwards with a decision on whether to reinstate the individual’s access and/or issue sanctions. 

Please note that CON.TXT is a private event, and we reserve the right to refuse admission to any attendee at any time for any reason, with no refund of registration fees. Conduct outside CON.TXT or CON.TXT-affiliated spaces that violates the Code of Conduct may result in a preemptive ban.

Reporting Violations

The convention committee will take all reports seriously. You do not have to be a current or past CON.TXT attendee to make a report. 

Reports must be made in good faith. Any bad faith reports made with intent to use the code of conduct to harass, silence, or otherwise harm individuals will be treated as code of conduct violations.

Where and how to report

If you experience or witness behavior counter to the Code of Conduct, or any other concerning behavior or activities, please contact the Safety team at safety@contxt.club or by filling out our anonymous reporting form. During the con, members of the Safety team can also be contacted on Discord by posting to the #safety channel. 

In your report, please include:

  • Your name and contact information (optional). This allows us to follow up with you so we can better understand the situation. However, it’s not required. You can report anonymously with the form linked above. Please know that we might not be able to take any action without being able to ask questions.
  • A detailed description of what happened, including:
    • Where and when the incident occurred.
    • If the incident happened online, please link to or send us the relevant text or screenshots.
    • If the incident happened in person, please describe what the other person said or did.
  • Any other relevant context. Do you have examples of similar behavior from this person in the past? Do you have a relationship with this person outside of CON.TXT?
  • If or how you’ve already responded. This lets us know the current state of the situation.

Confidentiality

We will keep all reports confidential, unless we’ve discussed it with you and agreed otherwise. When we discuss incidents with people who have been reported, we will anonymize details as much as possible to protect the reporter’s privacy.

However, some incidents happen in one-on-one interactions, and even if the details are anonymized, the reported person may be able to guess who made the report. If you have concerns about retaliation, or your personal safety, and do not want us to share the details of your report with anyone (including the reported person) please let us know explicitly in your report. Unfortunately, in that situation we will not be able to take any action beyond noting the incident in our records.

In some cases, we may decide to share an update about a major incident with people currently at CON.TXT or with the entire CON.TXT community. If that’s the case, the identities of all victims and reporters will remain confidential unless those individuals instruct us otherwise.

Feedback

This is a living document. If you have comments or suggestions, please contact us at info@contxt.club.

Credits

This document is based on a number of examples. It owes an incredible amount to the Fanworks’ Code of Conduct, but also draws from the Geek Feminism Wiki, Recurse, Conference Code of Conduct, Citizen Code of Conduct and Readercon codes.

Accessibility Policy

CON.TXT strives to provide an accessible environment for all attendees, online as well as in person.

For our virtual convention, there will be a live captioning tool available in all main Zoom rooms (but not in breakout rooms) and all premiering vids will have subtitles. 

We ask mods and VJs to help us foster this environment by following our guidelines on creating accessible programming.

We ask all attendees to do the same by following these guidelines for panel participation: 

  1. Follow moderator guidance on when you should be muted, where to chat, and how to share questions and comments. If the moderator doesn’t offer guidance:
    • Keep your microphone muted when you are not speaking.
    • Use the Raise Hand feature if you have a question or comment and wait to unmute until you are called on.
  2. State your badge name before speaking so that everyone can follow the discussion.
  3. Don’t use emoji in your Discord user name and avoid using large blocks of emoji.
  4. Don’t use rapidly flashing GIFs.

If you would like to inform us of an accessibility need before or during the convention, please get in touch with the Safety team. We may not be able to address all requests for 2023, but we will do our best to accommodate requests going forward.

Content Notes Policy

Read our full content notes policy for vids screened at CON.TXT.

Privacy Policy

We have attempted to make the CON.TXT online spaces as secure as is practical, but we cannot guarantee privacy to the degree we can in an offline space. We ask attendees to be especially respectful of each other’s names, pseudonyms, and other personal information. Our Code of Conduct prohibits behavior we consider violations of privacy. All attendees are expected to adhere to it.

We only collect and store information necessary for running the con (your online handle and email addresses). We store this data in a private Google Workspace. We store some of this information on Airtable. We use third-party apps (Paypal and Stripe) to process financial data.  

We are using three online platforms for CON.TXT 2023, and all have published privacy policies that we recommend you read: Conline, Discord, and Zoom.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding your data, please email us.

If you have concerns about your privacy during the convention, or about any other behavior that contravenes the Code of Conduct—or that you’re concerned about for some other reason—you can make a report to the Safety team.

Read our full Privacy Policy