GEM Code of Conduct

This code is effective as of January of 2022. Last update January 11, 2022.

Introduction

This Code of Conduct is designed to help members of the GEM collective (Gnome Stew, Encoded Designs, and Misdirected Mark Productions) work together 1) to keep our community safe and inclusive and 2) to maintain our reputation for quality media and trustworthy, approachable content. We believe that both are essential to our ongoing positive contribution to the RPG community as a whole and to the success of our individual facets. 

The Code of Conduct establishes expectations and responsibilities for anyone who is in any way representing one or more of these three institutions — including members and collaborators — and outlines our current processes for addressing harm within our community. We are codifying the behavior we strive for — what has previously been enforced through mutual understanding — into this document for clarity, transparency, and accountability.

While we think it’s essential to have this code written down, we also understand that individual situations can be difficult to predict and can evolve rapidly, so it is our goal to emphasize a standard of moral and ethical conduct to guide us. We also commit to treating this code as a living document that can and should be periodically revisited, revised, and updated to best suit the needs of our growing and changing community.

Definitions

Because of the merged hobbyist and professional nature of our network, it’s necessary for us to define the type of people we are interacting with.

GEM Leadership

Someone who is in a leadership position and/or owner of one of the GEM Facets (Gnome Stew, Encoded Designs, and Misdirected Mark). 

Member

Someone who regularly creates content for any part of the GEM collective.

Collaborator

Someone who participates in, contributes to, or works to support content creation for the GEM collective on a temporary or inconsistent basis including contractors, volunteers, and guests.

Content Creator

Anyone who creates content for any facet of the GEM collective, whether a member or a collaborator (as above).

Consumer

Someone who consumes the media that we generate, with whom we do not have an existing reciprocal relationship.

Friend

Someone with whom there is a personal, reciprocal relationship.

Public

Everyone else with whom there is no direct relation.

What We Stand For & What We Stand Against
(Values/Goals/Vision)

We strive to create a safe, welcoming, and inclusive community for gamers of all kinds. We firmly believe that diversity of experience and perspective is necessary to build a thriving and healthy gaming community. 

We do not tolerate racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, or bigotry, and will not use our platform to support or promote these ideas. We understand that we are always learning, and that propaganda and expressions of intolerance will change and evolve, so it will be our goal to react quickly to mitigate any issues that arise. 

General Behavioral Expectations

Seek to Understand

Seeking to understand means approaching potential conflict or difference from a place of curiosity and empathy first. We hope that we can start from the assumption that other members of our community have the best intentions.

Act with integrity and kindness

Please do your best to act with kindness, maintain personal and community integrity, and help proactively support a safe and inclusive environment.

Be a Good Community Member

Good members in a community do their best to avoid hurting others, are conscious of the space they’re occupying, and try to ensure they are being inclusive of everyone. Good community members do not deliberately hurt each other, participate in offensive or derogatory behavior, or make offensive or harmful jokes. 

Policies/Community Agreements/Community Guidelines

Responsibilities of GEM Members

All members of the GEM collective share responsibility to create an inclusive and safe environment that is free of discrimination, harassment, and abuse. Thus all members of the GEM collective are responsible for reporting any incidents they believe may violate this Code of Conduct.

GEM leadership has an additional unique responsibility to ensure any reports of issues are addressed equitably, effectively, and according to the processes outlined in this document.

Harassment

We will not tolerate any kind of harassment by our community members — whether that harassment occurs within our spaces or outside of them. By harassment, we mean any unwelcome interactions (verbal, written, visual, physical, electronic/online, etc.) that adversely affect the comfort and safety of an individual or group. Often, harassment’s harm comes from a pattern of behavior, however only one instance of harmful interaction is necessary to be considered harassment. This may include, but is not limited to:

  • Engaging in demeaning gestures or remarks;
  • Verbal abuse such as insulting, name calling, teasing, mocking, degrading, or ridiculing another person or group (this may include comments distributed via, or published on, the internet);
  • Intentional or repeated use of deadnames or incorrect pronouns;
  • Threats or intimidation;
  • Discriminatory images or symbols;
  • Hate Speech;
  • Stalking;
  • Conduct that is physically offensive, harmful, threatening, or humiliating such as impeding or blocking movement, leering, or staring.

All members of the GEM collective share responsibility to maintain an environment that is free of discrimination, harassment, and abuse, and for reporting any incidents they believe may fall into these categories.

Sexual Harassment

Defined as harassment (above), but directed at an individual on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, gender, and/or gender identity. Sexual Harassment may occur with only one action depending on the severity. Sexual harassment includes the general harassment above, and additionally: 

  • Broad generalizations related to sex, sexual orientation, gender, and/or gender identity, such as suggesting that all people of a particular gender share a particular trait;
  • Inappropriate or sexual comments about clothing or appearance;
  • Unwanted questions or comments about an individual’s private life, sexual orientation, or marital or family status;
  • Unwanted display of sexual material (including “dick pics”);
  • Implied or expressed offer of reward/threat of reprisal for sexual favors;
  • Unwanted physical contact;
  • Sexual assault.

It is also important for us to note that when Members relate to people who are Consumers or Collaborators, there is an implicit power dynamic which can make them feel unsafe to speak up for fear of retaliation. It is our responsibility to maintain a space where all feel empowered and safe to speak up about their needs and experiences.

Discrimination

Racism, ableism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, fatphobia, homophobia (including aphobia), transphobia, trans exclusionism, and any other kind of discriminatory behavior are not welcome in our spaces. We will not engage in discrimination based on the grounds listed above, meaning: no actions based on the above grounds that negatively impact the professional or personal life of an individual. 

Additionally, we consider discriminatory practices to include systemic discrimination and will commit to ongoing review of practices that may appear neutral but have a disproportionately negative impact on one or more marginalized groups, including hiring practices, stereotypical portrayals of groups or individuals, access to resources, and access to positions of leadership or power.

Hate Speech

Hate speech is not allowed here in any form, nor are those who support it — not even in jest. We don’t use, promote, or normalize language that intends harm or limits the complexity of one’s existence down to a term they may not be okay with. We say this because words are important and have power — think about the kind of language you are using.

Retaliation

Engaging in hostile conduct towards an individual because that individual reported any violation of the Code of Conduct or participated in an investigation process will not be tolerated. Similarly, any attempt to intimidate or otherwise prevent someone from engaging in these processes is prohibited.

Additional Policies

Gifts and Giveaways

Members of any of the facets of GEM and their immediate family are not eligible for gifts or giveaways run by any show on the podcast network or any giveaway or gift from Encoded Designs. Previous members must have officially stepped away from membership for at least six months before they or their families can be considered eligible for giveaways of any kind. 

Review Copies

Content Creators are often given free copies of products in exchange for a review. These products are usually kept by the reviewer after the review is complete. When a content creator uses a free copy for a review (written or recorded) or for any other form of influence (i.e. “plug on a show”, social media post, etc.), they must clearly disclose that a free copy was provided in the article or other media. 

Review – Read vs. Play/Use

Content creators are encouraged to play games or supplements they are reviewing, but it is not required. In the spirit of full disclosure, the content creator must disclose if they have read or played/used the material they are reviewing. This should be stated at the start of the review. 

Policies for Sub-Communities

We define a sub-community as any community made by a Content Creator with a primary purpose of supporting or promoting the work that they are doing with any facet of GEM. This includes forums, Discord servers, Slack teams, or other communication-based communities for a particular podcast or other GEM media. 

A sub-community must have a code of conduct based on this document, or in the spirit of this document, as part of their policies. Linking to this document directly is also acceptable. It is the responsibility of the sub-community to enforce the code of conduct for their community.

Expectations for Collaborators

We must all do our best to avoid amplifying the voice and influence of people or groups who act out of alignment with our values. Anyone representing the GEM collective or contributing to our community — including Collaborators — will actively uphold this Code of Conduct. This includes but is not limited to the following: guest bloggers, guests on shows, companies who produce materials for reviews, contractors, etc. Content Creators who approve collaborations are required to do due diligence to ensure that Collaborators act in alignment with our values. If there is any question it should be brought up with the appropriate leadership.

Processes

Compliance with this Code

The GEM collective takes this code very seriously, as it represents the integrity of both our brands and the individual members of the collective. All Members and Collaborators are responsible for upholding this standard of behavior while they are representing any facet of GEM. The guidelines addressed by this code are sufficiently important that any breach of judgment within these areas is grounds for investigation and discipline. ​​Outcomes may vary from removal of harmful content and apology to removal of a GEM member depending on the issue at hand and findings of the committee.

While it is everyone’s responsibility to uphold the Code of Conduct, formal accountability and investigation processes will be coordinated by the Safety Committee for the appropriate GEM facet, as described below.

Safety Committee

Each facet of GEM will create and maintain a Safety Committee, meeting at minimum the following requirements:

  • At least three members
  • One member from leadership, and no more

The Safety Committees will be responsible for receiving and acting on reports as below. It is their responsibility to monitor the anonymous reporting form. Each facet will maintain a public-facing list of the members of their Safety Committee. 

Reporting Options

It is important to us that all members of our community feel as safe as possible reporting concerns — including potential violations of the Code of Conduct. To that end, we have several avenues for reporting an incident, issue, or concern for any GEM facet:

  • Reports can be made using the Google here: https://forms.gle/aAgF178W8Dfv9L9x5, submissions from which are only accessible by the Safety Committees for each facet. Note that this form provides an option for any submission to remain anonymous. 
  • Reports can be made directly to any member of the Safety Committees.
  • Reports can be made to any member of the Leadership of the GEM collective, who will bring the concern to the Incident Response Group for investigation.

Incident Response Group Membership

When the Safety Committee receives a report, they will begin by convening an Incident Response Group as follows:

  1. Create a formal record of the report to be kept in a secure location.
  2. Inform GEM Leadership of the general nature of the report, without disclosing the names of those involved or details that would identify them.
  3. If the incident involves multiple facets in the GEM organization, the incident response group will have representation from each relevant Safety Committee. 
  4. Determine if any Safety Committee members should recuse themselves from the process (for example, because of conflicts of interest).
  5. If there are at least 3 un-conflicted Safety Committee members available, they will form the Incident Response Group. If there are not, then attempt to recruit members from within the GEM collective.
  6. If there are not at least 3 un-conflicted members currently available to form an Incident Response Group, request that GEM leadership utilizes a third-party investigator.

Investigation Overview

The Safety Committees will maintain a document with further specific details on resolving investigations, separate from this document, to ensure standardization of process and results. 

Once an Incident Response Group has been convened, they will take the following steps to investigate the report:

  1. Appoint a chair of the Incident Response Group.
  2. The Incident Response Team will determine if a public announcement should be made, based on the incident and the request of reporting individual(s). Write and post communication of a potential incident on the appropriate website(s), and alert the appropriate internal Slack channels as determined. Our intent is to be open and accountable while balancing the privacy of victims.
  3. Public posting will include a timeline for the next follow up. 
  4. Begin investigation.
  5. Report weekly progress to GEM Leadership
  6. Conclude investigation and determine outcomes.
    1. Incident Response Group may request additional input from other members of the Safety Committee or GEM leadership, however final determination lies with the Incident Response Group. 
  7. Report outcomes to GEM Leadership.
  8. Work with GEM Leadership to create a plan for communicating outcomes to all impacted parties (including, when appropriate, Members, Collaborators, and Consumers).
  9. Close investigation.

Code of Conduct Revision Process

The Code of Conduct is a living document and will over time grow and change. The following processes define the ways that changes will occur.

Ad Hoc Updates

From time to time, a small change, addition, or clarification will need to be made to the Code of Conduct. This may arise from a comment, the constantly evolving landscape of technology and our understanding of safety and inclusivity, a question, or an event that has occurred. When there is an immediate or short term need to update the Code of Conduct to reflect updated information, anyone can bring these recommendations or concerns to a Safety Committee. That Safety Committee will review, touch base with the members of all the other Safety Committees, and together will determine if a change to the Code of Conduct is required as outlined in the change process below. 

Annual Review

Annually, in the first quarter of each calendar year, the Safety Committees will review the entire Code of Conduct and determine if any changes are needed. They will hold a meeting to discuss any potential changes and create a list of proposed changes.

Change Process

The following process outlines how changes to the Code of Conduct will be made:

  1. The Safety Committee will inform their Leadership as well as the other GEM Safety Committees of the proposed change.
  2. The change will be discussed with all Safety Committees and an agreement will be reached on how to proceed.
  3. If a change in text is required, a draft of the change will be written and then shared with all Content Creators. 
  4. Content Creators will have a period of 1 week (unless specifically determined otherwise) to provide feedback.
  5. Feedback will be reviewed and the Safety Committees will work to reach a consensus.
  6. The finalized change will be made to the Code of Conduct web page.  The information on what was changed and when it was changed will be added to the Code of Conduct change log.

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