2020 Pod-Together Content Moderation Rules

[shmaylor]

After reading discussions over the past week about racism in fandom and the harm in letting racist fanworks go unmoderated, we have workshopped some rules to reduce racist content in pod-together.

These rules will serve as a guidepost for participants as they create their collaborations, and may also motivate them to reach out to a beta reader or sensitivity reader if they are unsure whether their work falls within the rules. During the challenge, we will help signal boost any searches for beta readers or sensitivity readers.

Our plan is that once pod-together projects are revealed, we will have a system where anyone can anonymously report to us a work that they believe is in violation of one of these rules. If we receive a report about a work being in violation, we will follow up as described in rule 3.

This is the first year we have included content moderation in pod-together and we are open to continued feedback about the wording of these rules and about our process for enforcing them. If you have any concerns or suggestions, please reach out to us at pod.together@gmail.com.

2020 Content Rules:

1. No using the real-life tragedies of BIPOC as a backdrop for stories that center characters who are white. This includes centering white characters in an AU of an oppressive situation that happened to BIPOC, such as a slavery AU.
 

1a. Similarly, no using real-life tragedies of other marginalized groups to center characters that are not members of those groups. This includes centering members outside that group in an AU of an oppressive situation that happened to that group, such as a Holocaust AU.
 

2. Don’t use negative stereotypes as a way to demonize or discard BIPOC characters in favor of white characters. (example: for Kirk/Spock fic, making Uhura an angry black woman to justify Spock's relationship with Kirk). This post may be helpful.

3. If anyone flags an untagged racist trope or racist language in a story, the mod team will check for accuracy (with outside consultation as needed). If a racist trope or language is confirmed, the creators will be required to tag for that content unless they revise the fanwork to no longer include that content.
 

3a. Other oppressive tropes or language (sexist, ableist, homophobic, etc) can also be flagged to mods and will have the same follow-up steps as above.

Content Moderation Rules Reporting Form:

Pod-Together works that do not meet the content rules as described above can be reported to the mods through this google form.

Reports can be anonymous or you can provide your contact information so we can reach out to you if we have questions. We will look into every issue that is reported to us. There is no need for multiple people to coordinate reporting the same issue, unless they have additional information to add, as a single report will be treated with the same weight as multiple identical reports.

Recommended Resources:

This section will be updated periodically as the mods locate or participants suggest resources that can assist in creating antiracist fanworks. Please feel free to comment with additional suggestions.

1. Writing with Color - A tumblr focused on writing and resources centered around racial diversity. Contains Q&A-style advice, writing guides, etc.

2. White Light, Black Magic: Racism in Esoteric Thought (pdf) - Resource about the racist history of the terms black or dark and white or light when describing magic. Relevant quote: "Wherever we find ourselves using the term "white" to mean positive, socially acceptable and sacred, and black as undesirable, ugly and evil, this is a flag to re-examine our thinking and recast our terminology." This is very long, so you may or may not read it all, but check out at least the first page and the section called "Inclusive Esoteric Language" that starts on page 48.

3. Writing the Other - A small collection of resources for creating inclusive fiction. The site includes resources for many identities and has a collection specifically for writing characters of different races and ethnicities.

4. Marvel Fans 4 BLM Resource Page - Marvel Fans 4 BLM is a fanworks auction in support of Black Lives Matter causes. This page is their curated collection of resources, including links to information specifically focused on writing Black characters.

5. Writing the Margins from the Center and Other Moral Geometries - An article by writer Amal El-Mohtar about how to approach writing marginalized characters. This is less of a practical guide than some of the other linked resources, and more of a jumping off point for introspective thinking.

6. The E-Racing of The Hunger Games: Race & Cultures in Fiction - An article by Hiromi Goto on racial vagueness in The Hunger Games, and methods to indicate race in fiction besides simply descriptions of skin color.

Comments

[runpunkrun]

Thank you for doing this work to make your challenge explicitly anti-racist. I moderate fancake and when I asked around for anti-racist policies to study, I was pointed here (twice!). I'm working on anti-racist policies for my own comm and, with your permission, will incorporate these ideas and language into my policies, with a note that they were adapted from the pod_together rules.

[shmaylor]

Yes you can absolutely incorporate these rules into your policies. Though I would keep in mind that they are new and it's definitely possible that we'll have to make changes depending on how it goes, so you'll probably want to be open to adaptations based on input from your community.

[runpunkrun]

Thank you! I am going to ask for feedback from my own community, and I also plan on adding two more restrictions: no fanworks with whitewashing, and no fanworks that erase Indigenous People--which is the thing that brought on RaceFail09.