Mission of the Writing Journey
The Writing Journey is a writing community located around the western suburbs of Chicago, roughly centered around Naperville. It sprung from the Naperville region of National Novel Writing Month, with writers desiring a year-round community that also covered not just writing, but editing and publishing. The Writing Journey exists to encourage and help writers practice and improve their craft, to grow as writers, to network, and to have fun through activities and events that build upon the creativity and diversity of our writing community.
Participation in the Journey (Paths)
We pursue these goals through one-time or recurring events, called Paths. Single-event Paths may be social activities to recharge creative batteries (e.g., Shakespeare Reader’s Theater) or a field trip to local writers’ events (e.g., Printer’s Row). Ongoing events may be long-term projects (e.g., annual anthologies) or regular meetings for learning (eg General Meetings, Tech Path), accountability (e.g., Editing Path), or writing (e.g., Writer’s Workshop Critique Path, Shut Your Trap)
Membership in the Writing Journey is open to everyone who agrees to abide by the Code of Conduct.
The “Core” Paths (persistent, major Paths) are:
- the Anthology Path
- General Meetings
- Editing Path
- Tech Path
- Writer’s Workshop Critique Path
As these change over time, this document will be updated.
Code of Conduct
Welcome to the Writing Journey!
Our community, which began in 2007, is intended to be an inclusive and welcoming community for writers. We exist to help our members share their experience and knowledge for our continued growth and improvement as creative writers.
We celebrate and welcome diversity of all races, genders, sexualities, religions, and countries of origin.
Hate speech is not allowed.
Reference: Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct
Our Pledge
We as members pledge to make participation in our community a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of age, body size, visible or invisible disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, gender identity and expression, level of experience, education, socio-economic status, nationality, personal appearance, race, caste, color, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.
Harassment can be defined as “unwelcome conduct, verbal or physical, including intimidation, ridicule, insult, comments, or physical conduct.”
We pledge to act and interact in ways that contribute to an open, welcoming, diverse, inclusive, and healthy community.
Our Standards
Examples of behavior that contributes to a positive environment for our community include:
- Demonstrating empathy and kindness toward other people
- Being respectful of differing opinions, viewpoints, and experiences
- Giving and gracefully accepting constructive feedback
- Accepting responsibility and apologizing to those affected by our mistakes, and learning from the experience
- Attempting to resolve concerns privately before escalating to leaders
- Separating personal preference from critiques and concerns when participating in a discussion
- Respecting the sanctity of writer’s documents (e.g., don’t change them without permission – make copies or use suggest mode)
Examples of unacceptable behavior include:
- The use of sexualized language or imagery, and unwanted sexual attention or advances of any kind.
- Trolling, threatening, or making insulting or derogatory comments, and personal or political attacks.
- Public or private harassment.
- Publishing others’ private information, such as a physical or email address, without their explicit permission.
- Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional setting (e.g., plagiarism, intellectual property theft, or changing/destroying work of other members).
Enforcement Responsibilities
Community leaders are responsible for clarifying and enforcing our standards of acceptable behavior and will take appropriate and fair corrective action in response to any behavior that they deem inappropriate, threatening, offensive, or harmful.
Community leaders have the right and responsibility to remove, edit, or reject comments and other contributions that are not aligned to this Code of Conduct, and will communicate reasons for moderation decisions when appropriate.
Scope
This Code of Conduct applies within all community spaces (e.g., in our Discord server, in our google groups, in in-person and Zoom/Google Meet meetings, and in our Facebook group), and also applies when an individual is officially representing the community in public spaces. Examples of representing our community include using writingjourney.org e-mail address, posting via an official social media account, or acting as an appointed representative at an online or offline event.
Enforcement
Instances of abusive, harassing, or otherwise unacceptable behavior may be reported to the community leaders at https://writingjourney.org/contact. These leaders comprise the leaders of the active Core Paths (list maintained at https://writingjourney.org/leaders )
If complaints concern the behavior of a community leader, then the concerns should be relayed to https://writingjourney.org/ombudsman.
Members may also directly e-mail any leader.
All complaints will be reviewed and investigated promptly and fairly.
All community leaders are obligated to respect the privacy and security of the reporter of any incident.
Enforcement Guidelines
Community leaders will follow these Community Impact Guidelines in determining the consequences for any action they deem in violation of this Code of Conduct. At each level of enforcement, a Community Impact is defined that describes the type and severity of the infraction that might trigger an enforcement action. The Consequence provides guidelines that the community leaders will take under consideration in determining their enforcement action.
1. Correction
Community Impact: Use of inappropriate language or other behavior deemed unprofessional or unwelcome in the community.
Consequence: A private, written warning from community leaders, providing clarity around the nature of the violation and an explanation of why the behavior was inappropriate. A public apology may be requested.
2. Warning
Community Impact: A violation through a single, severe incident, a series of inappropriate behavior, or continued inappropriate behavior after corrective action has been taken by leaders.
Consequences: A warning with consequences for continued behavior. No interaction with the people involved, including unsolicited interaction with those enforcing the Code of Conduct, for a specified period of time. This includes avoiding interactions in community spaces as well as external channels like social media. Violating these terms may lead to a temporary or permanent ban.
3. Temporary Ban
Community Impact: A serious violation of community standards, including sustained inappropriate behavior.
Consequence: A temporary ban from any sort of interaction or public communication with the community for a specified period of time. No public or private interaction with the people involved, including unsolicited interaction with those enforcing the Code of Conduct, is allowed during this period. Violating these terms may lead to a permanent ban.
4. Permanent Ban
Community Impact: Demonstrating a pattern of violation of community standards, including sustained inappropriate behavior, harassment of an individual, or aggression toward or disparagement of classes of individuals.
Consequence: A permanent ban from any sort of public interaction within the community. E.g., permanent removal from all community spaces and a ban from all events.
Attribution
This Code of Conduct is adapted from the Contributor Covenant, version 2.1, available at https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/2/1/code_of_conduct.html.
Community Impact Guidelines were inspired by Mozilla’s code of conduct enforcement ladder.
For answers to common questions about this code of conduct, see the FAQ at https://www.contributor-covenant.org/faq. Translations are available at https://www.contributor-covenant.org/translations.
Contributor Covenant was created by Coraline Ada Ehmke in 2014 and is released under the CC BY 4.0 License.