Copyright © 2016 Fantasyland Institute of Learning. All Rights Reserved.
The Fantasyland Institute of Learning Code of Professionalism (FCOP) dictates the terms and conditions under which we allow you to participate in the community.
The purpose of FCOP is to facilitate inclusiveness and productivity (towards our professional goals) in our community despite operating in a pluralistic society. To accomplish this goal, we restrict the community to civil people, and protect such people from discrimination, stereotyping, harassment, judgmental communication, and breaches of privacy.
FCOP is explicitly not intended to impose any system of politics, religion, ideologies, morals, or values onto members.
We welcome all civil people to participate in the community. We do not allow discrimination, harassment, judgmental communication, or breaches of privacy. We do not exclude any civil people from our community unless they have been banned by us for a violation of these terms and conditions.
We welcome civil people of all genders, gender-expressions, sexual-orientations, gender-orientations, races, ethnic origins, skin colors, physical handicaps, mental handicaps, ages, sizes, political views, religious views, philosophies, beliefs, and attitudes.
We pledge that we will not tolerate discrimination, harassment, judgmental communication, or breaches of privacy. We pledge to hold ourselves to these same standards and, in so doing, set a positive example for others to follow.
We greatly value integrity and pledge to establish the highest levels of trust in members.
During active participation, you must behave as described in this section.
- Don't Stereotype. Treat everyone as unique. Do not infer characteristics of a person based on their [perceived] membership in some group or category.
- Don't Communicate Judgmentally. You must not communicate the idea that any person, place, thing, idea, or action is superior or inferior to any other. Instead, talk about observations, analyses, models, and your own personal preferences.
- Don't Harass. Do not interact with anyone who does not consent. For verbal and written interaction you may assume consent for the first interaction, until the recipient communicates otherwise. For physical interaction, close physical proximity, and persistent gaze, you must assume non-consent until the person clearly and unambiguously communicates otherwise.
- Don't Pry. Do not go out of your way to read, watch, or listen to the private communications of other members (including trying to read their screens or listening to their private conversations). If you do read or overhear a private conversation, do not share it.
- Don't Obstruct. Do not attempt to disrupt communication between members, the activity of members, or the congregation of members.
- Assume the Best. Assume the best intention when others communicate with you. If you don’t understand what someone meant, or have questions about it, ask them directly rather than speculating or spreading rumors. If someone appears to be communicating judgmentally ("Coffee is good"), assume they did so only as a shorthand way of speaking, and ask them to clarify what objective metrics and personal predictions and preferences they are implying ("I like coffee").
These requirements on behavior apply to members only while they are actively participating in the community. The standing of members is unaffected by behavior that does not comply with these requirements if this behavior occurs in other communities.
During inactive participation, you must behave as described in this section.
- Be Civil. Do not engage in criminal activity, and do not sabotage the community or member's careers for political, religious, ideological, or moral reasons.
- Don't Dox. Do not disseminate any private details about others learned within the community without express permission, including but not limited to real name, address, phone number, or photo identity.
- Don't Shame. You must not negatively communicate about a member's behavior (which occurred inside the community, or which you learned about while inside the community) with anyone outside the community without express permission of the discussed members, where the discussed members themselves decide what is negative.
These requirements on behavior apply to members at all times, even when they are not actively participating in the community.
Private Communication. During active participation, you may take phone calls, direct messages, emails, and other semi-private forms of communication. Although private communication is not bound by FCOP, we expect all communication that can be seen or overheard by other members will comply with the requirements of FCOP.
Private Consumption. During active participation, you may consume material on your own personal devices and from your own channels of communication, and this material does not have to conform to FCOP, assuming the material is not easily discernible to others.
No Victimless Crime. If you are a victim but you do not feel victimized, you may choose to not report the violation. In this case, we will not treat the incident as a violation.
Reporting Process. Active participation violations must be reported to us within 15 days by victims, and may not be reported by third-parties. Inactive Participation violations may be reported at any time, and by anyone, even non-members.
Unofficial Resolution. For minor offenses and in cases where they prefer doing so, we encourage victims to speak to violators, using the language of non-violent communication (NVC). If you would like to do this with the help of an independent mediator, contact us and we will arrange for one.
Official Resolution. If you want an official intervention, we will appoint a judge. The judge will speak individually to all parties, including witnesses, before deciding on a course of action, which will involve rejecting the reported violation, or accepting it and imposing a penalty on the violator.
Penalties. Violators may be warned, asked to apologize, forced into training, counseling or mediation, or ejected and banned from the community, at the sole discretion of the judge.
Social Rehabilitation. No one can be banished for life, only for a determined number of years, not to exceed 5 years. Formerly banned parties can be reintegrated into the community through a rehabilitation process determined by us.
Confidentiality. Reporting a violation is a confidential process. We will not publish information on any reported incident or the parties involved in the incident. Note that criminal behavior of any kind will not be kept confidential.
In the event there is a dispute about the meaning of any term or clause in FCOP, we alone will clarify the intent.
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Active Participation. We define active participation to include the behavior of members while they are in the boundaries of the community.
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Behavior. We define behavior to include all and only observable actions of people, and to explicitly exclude any private thoughts, beliefs, ideas, attitudes, morals, and emotions.
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Civil. We define civil individuals as individuals who, in our sole estimation, do not and will not engage in the following behaviors during active participation or inactive participation:
- Crimes. Any criminal behavior in which there is a victim.
- Community Sabotage. Any behavior (excluding non-violent communication) directed at sabotaging the community for political, religious, ideological, or moral reasons.
- Professional Sabotage. Any behavior directed at sabotaging a member's career for political, religious, ideological, or moral reasons; including attempting to no-platform a member or pressuring an employer to fire a member.
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Communication. We define communication as any transmission of information between people, including but not limited to verbal, written, electronic, pictorial, gestural, and tactile.
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Community. We define our community as a group of people with a shared professional interest that exists at some location (online or geographical) and within some span of time. The boundaries of the community are dictated by us, but cannot extend in space or time to any place where we do not have the actual or legal ability to impose FCOP-prescribed penalties on violators.
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Discrimination. We define discrimination as any favoritism shown or withheld to someone either on the basis of a stereotype or a non-community related group membership.
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Harassment. We define harassment as an attempt to interact with someone who does not consent to the interaction.
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Inactive Participation. We define inactive participation to include the behavior of members at all times and under all circumstances.
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Interaction. We define interaction as any one-on-one communication, physical contact (with person or property), close proximity, or persistent gaze. Interaction does not include opt-in, broadcast-based communication within the Community.
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Judgmental Communication. We define judgmental communication as any communication which asserts or implies that something has intrinsic superiority or inferiority to something else. This includes all forms of name-calling, but explicitly excludes any language that qualifies as non-violent communication (NVC).
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Members. We define a member of the community as a civil individual who we allow to actively participate in the community.
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Stereotyping. We define stereotyping as behavior that infers or implies one characteristic of an individual based on their [perceived] membership in some group or category.
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Victim. We define victims as people for whom one or more of the following holds:
- Harassment. Someone has harassed them.
- Discrimination. Someone has discriminated against them.
- Stereotyping. Someone has stereotyped them or a group they belong to.
- Judgmental Communication. Someone has communicated judgmentally about them, their beliefs, their ideas, their religion, their morals, their values, or things they own or use; or someone has done so about a group to which they belong to.
- Breaches of Privacy. Someone has violated their privacy.
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Violator. We define violator as someone who has broken the terms and conditions of FCOP.
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We. We define we to be those who have the actual or legal ability to impose FCOP-prescribed penalties on violators within the physical or virtual boundaries of the community.