Toot.cat/CoC

Code of Conduct

Meta

This is not a contract. This is a guideline to help you understand how we, as a community, see and evaluate different kinds of behavior. We will always try to leave room for honest mistakes and misunderstandings, but we reserve the right to act without regard to strict or exacting interpretation of these guidelines. They are a statement of intention, and they are intended to reflect the views of the TootCat community. If you have comments or questions, please feel free to reach out to the TootCat Uberwensch (@woozle) whether or not you are a TootCat member. ^.^

General

As tooters on this instance, we pledge to uphold an environment that is radically inclusive with respect for all users.

We are committed to making participation in this instance an oppression-free experience for everyone, regardless of level of experience, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, personal appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, age, religion, or nationality.

We define oppression as any language or action that expresses, reinforces, upholds or sympathizes with any form of systemic social domination. We try to empower our users and encourage them to act against any abuses of the Code of Conduct, in order to ensure that TootCat remains an oppression-free experience.

Examples of unacceptable behavior include:

• Personal attacks
• Trolling or insulting/derogatory comments
• Public or private oppressive language or actions
• Other unethical conduct
• red flags (a couple of specific examples)

Certain types of content should posted in such a way that you avoid showing it to non-consenting parties. These types of content should:

• Not be used a profile picture
• Be posted with media marked as sensitive
• Not be posted to the public timeline

the above rules apply to content that is:

• Violent
• Flashing or rapidly changing

Creative Works

Always give credit to the artist for work that you post. A link back to the artist's original post will do, but feel free to give more details (name of artist, work from which the art is excerpted, or anything else that seems relevant).

Bots

Bots that autofollow will be banned on sight, even if they respect #nobots, because:

(a) now that relays exist, they really aren't necessary, and

(b) they can be used by rogue instances as a means of letting their users circumvent blocks, which is a violation of safety and privacy needs.

(This was implemented after appoval by a poll of toot.cat users posted on 2020-03-05.)

Commercial Activity / Self-Promotion (>>)

We will not accept paid advertising. As members of a global community of sapient and compassionate beings, we reject the idea that possession of capitalist power-tokens entitles the holder to compel others. Accounts that exist primarily to promote for-profit activity will be suspended without warning unless we have previously granted an exception.

We do wish to support activities that support workers, creators, and communities. This includes but is not limited to:

• independent artists/authors promoting or selling their own work or services, preferably through independent venues
• individually or co-operatively-owned sales venues
• individually or co-operatively-owned services

Rule of thumb: any profile which includes phrases like "Looking for $thing?" and then goes on to describe how they offer $thing (especially if they claim to have the best $thing in $area) will probably be suspended on sight.

Nudity / Sex / Kink (NSK)

NSK Content Warnings

Note that these are guidelines, not hard-and-fast rules. We're not going to take action against posts that technically violate these requirements unless we feel there is a compelling reason to do so.

(The text below is more or less verbatim from the original CoC when TootCat originally went live, when its founders were in somewhat uncharted waters, and it may have even have been copied directly from some legally-advised boilerplate. We'll modify it as needs arise, but please don't take it too seriously. We're more concerned about people being dicks than posting them. ...but yeah, please CW dick pics. Over time, we learn how to get along better with each other and there comes to be less trauma and anxiety around things like nudity. The more progress we make as a society, the fewer rules we will need. —@woozle)

Nudity is allowed without a CW as long as no genitals or nipples are shown

• If they are visible in the image they must be censored
• Nipple censoring pertains to any gender

Any sexual imagery must be hidden as a sensitive image

• Sexual imagery is considered to be any sex / kink act regardless of clothing state / nudity
• Sexual imagery and nudity are distinct concepts
• No illegal imagery is allowed regardless of CW state

NSK with a CW do not need to be censored in any way

Violation of the content warning rules will

• An immediate silence when its violated on the federation timeline
• A domain silence when its violated by multiple parties on an instance
• A warning and admin editing your content when its violated by toot.cat users

NSK Consent To Post

NSK should not have other users tagged without their explicit prior consent

Posting NSK that is not of yourself needs to include attribution to the person(s) visible, in such a way that clearly expresses their consent to have that imagery posted

Violation of the consent to post rule will result in

• An immediate suspension when its violated on the federation timeline
• A domain suspension when its violated by multiple parties on an instance
• 1 warning, followed by account deletion when violated by toot.cat users

toot.cat supports and invites sex workers to join our community and will not tolerate any harassment or slurs made at or about sex workers (e.g. "prostitute", "hooker", "whore")

Closing

By adopting this Code of Conduct, users commit themselves to fairly and consistently applying these principles to every aspect of using this instance. users who do not follow or enforce the Code of Conduct may be permanently banned.

This Code of Conduct applies both to toots on toot.cat and to public spaces when an individual is representing toot.cat or its community.

Instances of abusive, harassing, or otherwise unacceptable behavior may be reported by contacting an admin by using the report button. All reports will be reviewed and investigated and will result in a response that is deemed necessary and appropriate to the circumstances. Admins are obligated to maintain confidentiality with regard to the reporter of an incident.