Hi RFR!
Last night, several changes to Conduct Committee membership happened (and as a corollary, a few changes to the board).
The people joining the CC shouldn’t be a surprise, since there have been posts about an open comment period about their candidacy. After being interviewed by the committee and approved by majority vote of the board, the following are joining the CC:
- Joy Perkinson
- Mal Sillars
- Jessy McQuaw
Nuance Bryant, who has served as “interim” CC Chair for longer than she’d bargained for, is stepping down from the post, and is bowing out of the CC to take a well-deserved break. In her place, by vote of the outgoing CC, I will be assuming the position of Conduct Committee Chair.
This leaves us with 5 members of the Conduct Committee: myself (chair), Beth Baniszewski, Ken Clary, Mal Sillars, and Jessy McQuaw.
This also means that due to conflict of interest, the moment I was approved to the CC, I resigned from the board (and also technically from RFR Presidency, which was smoothly transitioned over to Sarah Walden-McGowan over the course of the last few months, as I expect you have noticed). Sarah is now the sole RFR President, long may she reign!
The Conduct Committee, and its Chair, are important roles that require a significant amount of community trust. As such, I wanted to tell you a bit about me and my values, so you know who is working for you.
I’ve been at RFR as its president (until last night) since its inception in early 2013. I play Kael Torren at Witchwood (NOT indicative of my OOG thoughts on conduct), played Amity Harlow at Port Katherine (much more in alignment), and staff Entanglement. The RFR president gets updates from the Conduct Committee about how many outstanding cases there are, and eventually when the CC makes its decision, the president delivers conduct decisions (in the form of letters or conversations). As such, I’ve had some familiarity with the CC’s workings, though without most of the case details due to confidentiality concerns.
Some of my values are:
Integrity. Everyone on the CC should adhere to strong moral and ethical principles, even when no one is watching. The fact that most of the CC’s discussions and actions happen in closed discussion and away from public scrutiny makes this value especially important.
Confidentiality. Conduct cases are sensitive, and their details should be treated as such.
Fairness. Everyone in the community, from the most established game director to the newest player, should abide by the same Code of Conduct. You don’t get a free pass if you’re well established, and even the newest player or crunchie deserves to feel safe.
Compassion and consideration. Conduct issues tend to be hard (in different ways) on everyone involved. In addition, there is nuance from case to case. Each case will be treated seriously and thoughtfully.
Transparent operational procedures. The community deserves to have some transparency into generally how the Conduct Committee works. This post is long enough as it is, but I will write something up about generally how we operate for future posting.
Timeliness. Sometimes, some of us will be swamped. But there are five of us on the committee, and we should be able to respond within a reasonable period of time. We will continue to track time from initial report to case closure. (If we don’t respond with some sort of email of acknowledgement, of course, please follow up or try another means of contact below – sometimes there are issues with spam filters.)
Availability: There are lots of ways to reach us. Even if you’re unsure if something is a conduct issue, like if someone might be violating our “don’t be a dick” rule but you don’t know if it’s worth a report or how to deal with it, you’re still welcome to email us.
Best way of reaching the conduct committee is email: conduct@redfeatherroleplaying.com
If spam filters are causing trouble, you can also try rfr-conduct@googlegroups.com
You can reach me directly with any questions or concerns, though sometimes due to the way it’s displayed I won’t notice DMs on slack and discord until they’ve been sitting there a while. Contact info:
- Email: joyperkinson@gmail
- Messenger: Joy Perkinson
- Google Hangouts: joyperkinson@gmail
- Slack: currently “Amity and Kael” (but I might eventually change my name there; the “Kael” part will remain regardless)
- Discord: joyp.7254
You can also reach our Ombudsperson at kep@redfeatherroleplaying.com or rfr-ombudsman@googlegroups.com or by reaching out to Kep when you see her at events, etc. She is another good resource for questions like “Do you think I should report this to the CC or should I resolve it through other means?”
Okay, that’s enough from me. Port Katherine folks are used to hearing me talk for this long, but still. (All PK folks within the sound of my voice, +2 virtual armor.)
Thanks for your attention and your trust,
Joy Perkinson