tl;dr: Does my behavior seem obnoxious relative to the group behavior? If yes, shut up if you want to hang.

Look, the vibe of this place is really important to me. I have to say a few things to set expectations because some folks need rules. For my PDAers, these rules are not arbitrary, they exist for reasons, if those reasons aren’t evident to you, you’re welcome to ask any questions privately to me. Ultimately, it’s my server and I wield the banhammer. Last week I was exhausted and didn’t really make myself clear, so let’s gooooo 

It’s not ok to:

• Monologue & take up the entire session

• Deny other people’s art is art. If you don’t think it’s art, shut up about it.

• Denigrate other people’s efforts or work. Unless you’ve gotten your research past peer review on the topic please keep your invalidating opinions to yourself, I am not interested in hearing them in my classroom. Your “lots of time thinking about this” is anecdotal, and not statistically significant.

• Ragebait with topics that are meant to inflame arguments. We’re a very leftist somewhat anarchist learning community, not a freshman debate class. Start a flame war on the internet, others interested in that game will happily oblige you, they’ve opted-in. Creating enemies in this space is a staggeringly profound tactical error. Most people in this space do not enjoy arguing for fun- you are allowed to find a space for that, somewhere else, outside of scheduled sessions that other people have paid to be in. 

• Engage in coercive emotional regulation. Ask yourself- did the person I am engaging with opt in to helping me regulate this emotion I’m having, or am I coercing them to regulate my feelings?

• Yell

• Talk over me, it’s my server yo.

It’s always ok to:

• Body double quietly

• Share cool stuff with the group

• Chat in the Chat off-topic

• Talk about your feelings (by naming them without a story attached)

• Create a boundary

• Express a need

• Promote your work

• Get excited about something you’re passionate about

• Stay quiet about things that literally do not affect you in any way

Neurodivergent people sometimes do not pick up on their effect on the vibe. It’s very normal for us to struggle to identify when we might be rubbing the group the wrong way. This listing is stuff that rubbed me the wrong way, and ultimately I’m kind of the median opinion in the group due to my tiktok being the primary incoming channel. I try to apply a lot of filters on that channel by being somewhat repellent to folks who don’t vibe with me. That’s fine if you don’t, but I’d like to remain a centroid for my own community so I will take actions (like ejecting you from the group) for too much obnoxious behavior. There was a fair amount of obnoxiousness last week, so let’s keep it chiller, it’s winter, have some tea and breathe.