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Community Guidelines for Comics Youth Discord Channels 2019

INTRODUCTION

We love making art, poetry, zines and radical plans to take over the world with you all! We miss our lovely creative HQ and satellite sessions, but we’ll do our best to create a safe and welcoming platform for you all. Our goal is to foster conversations that are helpful, informative and full of belly laughs! To do that, we need to set some Community Guidelines!

Purpose

Our Discord Channels is a CY service. Its primary function is to provide a space where you can chill and stay connected to our CY family. Please read the following rules very carefully.

We want you to:

- Create fun comics, zines, art and campaigns!
- Have fun hanging out with our CY family
- Make connections and have fun

Membership and personal responsibility

Membership requires you to be registered with Comics Youth CIC as a service user and access will be restricted to members only via a private invite. Each invite will be authorised by a member of the CY team. No other individual will have access to any server or channel. We want you to feel as safe as humanly possible <3 With that said…..

THE AWESOME SHORT VERSION

  • We’re so glad that you’re here! We hope you will help to create great conversations, distraction, art and campaign work in our community.

  • Do politely ask us questions and let us know what you like and don’t like about a specific activity, aspect of the discord channels or the ideas we talk about in it. Direct Message the sessional lead and away we go

  • Be cool to yourself and others. We’ll remove any uncool comments when we see them. We want you to feel safe.

  • Respect and support each other. We’re a small community full of dedicated, caring human beans working to make things better for us all.

    RULES OF THE ROAD.THE FOLLOWING IS NOT AWESOME. CY STAFF AND PEER MENTORS WILL ACT AS MODERATORS, REMOVE CONTENT OR ISSUE A WARNING.

Triggering content

Our servers are all about staying connected and keeping each other updated with our rad projects, artwork, interests and just day to day chat! We love our CY family and we know that everyone is just so fantastic and supportive, however, we have to remember that sometimes we can cover a whole range of sensitive issues. Whilst you may be comfortable sharing about some things, others may find it ‘triggering’.

‘Triggering’ is a complex term. It means different things to different people. As we can’t predict people’s triggers, and the term itself can be quite daunting, we don’t put ‘trigger warnings’ next to sensitive information. If you feel that you may bring up a ‘triggering’ subject, we kindly ask that you reference this at the beginning of your post, so that members of our community can decide if they are in a frame of mind to read or view the post.

For example, please avoid any graphic details and descriptions of self-harm, and perhaps focus on feelings and support instead. Although we want each of our servers to be honest and frank, we will edit any content that we deem to be graphic and possibly triggering. Any description or encouragement of violence, suicide, self harm or sexual abuse will not be tolerated in any shape or form. This is your digital safe space after all <3

THE ROAD

Here are some things that will get your comment or post removed. Note that this is not a comprehensive list. We’ll work with you to create more ground rules for our digital space. For now, this is our space!

  • Swearing: Please keep the language PG and be aware we will edit out any language that we deem unnecessary.

    • Personal data: If we see anyone uploading their personal details (phone number, email address, home address) we will have to take them down. This is to protect you not only from sharing too much personal data but also from any spammers or hacking.

  • Personal attacks: Do not attack or insult one another. This is not helpful, and it doesn’t’ make CY a friendly place. This is a safe space and we love you. • Illegal activities: Posting links to illegal downloads, ways to steal service, and other nefarious activity is not OK here.

  • NSFW Material. Nope. Not allowed. FADE TO BLACK. Even images or links that could be considered borderline are not acceptable. A good rule of thumb is that anything beyond PG13 is not cool, but we do reserve the right to remove any post we deem offensive or triggering. This goes for vile language, gore and generally gross stuff.

  • Racism, sexism and other discrimination: We are a safe space. Attacking entire classes of people is just like attacking a single person; this is not acceptable.

  • Pressure: Puts overt pressure on other members to respond, including ‘goodbye’ messages.

  • Personal beliefs: Promotes personal beliefs in a way that is disrespectful of the choices of others.

  • Spreading misinformation: We are not a platform for spreading misinformation and will remove posts promoting obvious falsehoods.

MODERATION

CY staff and Peer Mentors have been entrusted with the ability to intervene when the Discord Guidelines have been breached. However, due to the dynamic nature and potential volume of posts, we can’t immediately read everything written-therefore, much of the responsibility for maintaining our friendly environment lies with you.

If any material you post raises concerns about your safety or the safety of others, a moderator will alert our Designated Safeguarding Officer and they may try to contact you and/or a parent/guardian/emergency contact to make sure that you or others are safe. We may also need to pass your contact details on to authorities who can help or protect your safety or the safety of others (for example, to the police or a mental health crisis service).

Should you wish to query a moderation decision, please get in touch privately with our Designated Safeguarding Office, Rhiannon Griffiths via rhiannon@comicsyouth.co.uk and we will respond to you within 24 hours.

You will also be advised by email if your post has to be edited or removed from the Discord because it has breached our community rules. We take our duty of care in providing a safe environment for all our CY family seriously, and this includes recognising when a member may benefit from participating in our Discord and when it may be more appropriate to seek support offline. A copy of our Online Safeguarding Policy is available on request for more information.

ENDING YOUR TIME WITH US

You may request at any time that your membership be cancelled from the Discord, or remove yourself from the server/channel.

ISN’T THIS CENSORHSIP?

Well, no and yes. We’re trying to foster an inclusive community and we will remove comments that harm that endeavour. You’re free to say whatever you like at other places, but not here. At CY we have a different standard to the rest of the internet, and we will be working very hard to keep conversation informative and fun.

HOW TO REGISTER ON DISCORD

By registering an account with Discord:

  1. Open your web browser and head over to: https://discordapp.com/register

  2. Fill out the information including your email address, username and password

  3. Once you fill out the required information click on continue.

  4. You will need to verify your email address before you can fully use your Discord account.

  5. Eureka! Once you do that, you will finally be able to use our Discord Account.

  6. Click on the link we sent you and now you’re a part of the gang. Wahey!

HOW TO INTERACT WITH THE COMMUNITY

There are three ways to interact with our Online CY Community. Here’s the basics:


• Join a Server: The CY Discord servers are a great place to talk about comics, activism, games, DnD, zines, tv, films or music! The world is our oyster. LET’S DISMANTLE CAPITALISM. Comments are organised into collapsible threads to make it easier to follow conversation. For now, each channel will be text based and we will work towards voice options for certain closed groups soon.


• Channels: Each Server will have two channels 1) #ProjectWork for session based activities and; 2) #GeneralChat for you to socialise and rant about the world to your hearts content. It should be noted that Discord can accommodate text and voice channels.

We will have the following Discord servers open:

• Marginal Development Programme: This will be a closed group for members of our development programme to receive mentoring, coaching and advice from our Arts Director regarding their individual Comic Book projects. This channel is for general advice and communication. For more targeted support, please email steven@comicsyouth.co.uk.


• Activism: This server will be open to any CY member who would like to engage in online Activism. Our activism server will include a Junior (aged 13-17) and seniors (aged 18-15). Our junior Activist group will be focused on learning and developing art and writing centred on widening knowledge regarding Activists like Greta Thunberg, Malala Yousafzai, Syliva Rivera and Audre Lorde. They will also learn about Activism 101! Our Senior Activist group will be focused on designing digital campaigns to support their peers in this uncertain time. It’ll also be a safe space to get angry, vent frustrations and wax lyrical about what the HECK is going on right now.


• Safe Spaces: This server will be centred around providing a range of activities where we can work together to design safe digital spaces, make resources for our peers during this difficult time, have a natter about what’s going on in the world…and make waves in planning our Winter Queer Prom. In this server, we’re going to be hosting movie, tv and documentary watch parties, Nintendo switch nights and make playlists to get us all through this! We’ll create hashtags for our community to stay connected, smash some blog posts and work together to design a zine call out around safe spaces! This is your space. Let us know whatever rad idea you have to better our #SafeSpaces community. We love ya pals!


• Queer Youth: (TBD by Kay/Gyro/KYM)


• Newspaper: This server will be completely dedicated to managing our Newspaper. From story development, editorial team meetings and general ‘let’s take over the world’ vibes, this is for you! We will be publishing our Newspaper in the Summer of 2020. You got this! We believe in you so much <3


• Saturday drop-in and Comic Book reading group: This server is for our younger members at CY. Here’s looking at you Saturday Juniors! We understand that some of you may not be able to join in on our other platforms and we’ll work with you on some special projects! Our sessional leads will be sending you some pretty cool drawing challenges across all our social media channels that you’ll be able to submit to the server or to kay@comicsyouth.co.uk.


• Reading group: We’re sorry that you’ll be missing out on our Comics library, so we have a solution! We’ll be doing sign-ups for 20 of our young people to take part in a closed reading group where we’ll update each other on our progress and write reviews and/or drawings for our blog! We understand how expensive Comics are, and to combat this, we’ve made the decision to gift free publications via Comixology (an online comics reader). More info coming soon! Psst…..our sources tell us we’ll be working on a special Sponge bob zine! SQUEEEEEE.

PHYSICAL AND MENTAL HEALTH RESOURCES

Samaritans
Helpline for suicide prevention and mental health support.
24-hour phone line: 116 123
www.samaritans.org

No Panic
Support for sufferers of Panic Attacks and OCD Helpline
Open 10am-10pm (0844 967 4848)
www.nopanic.org.uk

Anxiety UK
Charity providing support for those who’ve been diagnosed with an anxiety condition
Helpline open Mon-Friday 9:30am-5:30pm (08444 775 774) www.anxietyuk.org.uk

Papyrus
Young Suicide Prevention Society
Helpline open: Mon-Friday 10am-5pm, & 7pm-10pm, Weekends 2pm-5pm (0800 068 4141 )
www.papyrus-uk.org

SANE
Emotional support, information and guidance for people affected by mental illness, their families and carers. ( Helpline Open 4:30pm-10:30pm) 0300 304 7000
www.SANE.org.uk

BEAT
Support services for eating disorders (Open between 3pm-10pm) Adult Helpline: 0808 801 0677 Youth line: 0808 801 0711 www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk

Mermaids
Support service for trans and gender diverse children, young people and their families Helpline open Monday to Friday between 9am-9pm (0808 801 0400)
www.mermaids.org.uk

Services for Knowsley/Liverpool

KOOTH

Free, safe and anonymous online support for young people
www.kooth.com

Talk Liverpool

Free NHS service offering therapy to people in Liverpool. www.talkliverpool.nhs.uk