Community Guidelines.

Listen with an open mind, and comment with an open heart. This community values kindness over all.

As a communications professional, I value the freedom of discourse and sharing of opinions in an open forum. This is why the comments section on all of my blog and social media posts will be open for discussion and feedback. My hope is to create a safe environment for members of this community to express themselves freely and openly, without the fear of bullying and harassment of any sort.

To do this, I have laid out some ground rules for community engagement on this platform:

Be kind and courteous: We're all in this together to create a welcoming environment for all. Let's treat everyone with respect. Healthy debates are natural, but harassment, shaming and bullying will not be tolerated. Kindness is required!

Use non-violent, inclusive language: Make sure everyone feels safe by avoiding language that can be shocking, violent or sexual in nature. If you take a moment to think about our everyday sayings and euphemisms, an uncomfortable amount of them are rooted in violence (i.e. "Shoot me a DM" or "You killed it!"). Especially when leaving feedback, positive or negative, do you best to step back and examine the language you're about to use.

Another online community named Massive Science Consortium has shared these 10 Skills for Active Listening with tips on how to listen and give feedback in productive ways. Consider reading it for more information.

Take care of each other: If others are not following the community guidelines, remind them of the guidelines politely and see if you can continue the conversation in a more constructive way.

If you have been given feedback that you are not following the guidelines, return to this page to remind yourself of the expectations, and consider apologizing to move forward the conversation.

Alert me by email if you notice a dangerous situation, someone in distress, or flagrant violations of these community guidelines.

Although these guidelines are not "hard and fast" rules, I reserve the right to delete any comments that are in flagrant violation.

If you feel someone else in the community consistently fails to meet these guidelines, please let me know via email at hello@earthmomma.co. We will discuss your feedback privately and, if appropriate, I will reach out to the person in question to deliver your feedback anonymously. If I receive multiple complaints that the same person is not following the above guidelines, I reserve the right to take any lawful action deemed appropriate, including but not limited to warning the offender or blocking/banning the offender from future engagement within the community.

If you feel you have been unfairly accused of violating these guidelines, contact me with a detailed description of your grievance; all grievances will be taken into consideration before further action is taken.

These community guidelines have been inspired by the Massive Science Consortium.