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Triangle Moonstone

Code of Conduct

·2313 words·11 mins
Author
Daniel Hosterman

Triangle Moonstone Code of Conduct
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Overview
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The Triangle Moonstone Discord Server (“TM”) is dedicated to providing a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, physical appearance, race, or religion. We do not tolerate harassment of participants in any form.

We are brought together as a community through our shared enjoyment of a game. We should be aware and courteous of the fact that we come from a range of backgrounds and live by a range of rules, ethics, politics and lifestyles. We are also the first point of contact for many joining the game. With that in mind, please keep conversation relevant to the channel it is posted in. Disagreement is to be expected and is healthy, but harmful and hurtful opinions are not welcome here; these are outlined below. Never be afraid to raise concerns, challenges or suggestions to the team of Mods.

We are extremely fortunate that most members of our community already understand, and embody, the basic principles of inclusivity and diversity. We assume every community member acts in good intent and we make every effort first to talk with people one-on-one to encourage healthier communication. Interpersonal conflict may be inevitable, but as a relatively small community, we cannot afford to fracture and drive people away over careless hostility. As such, we expect all members to hold themselves to the highest standards of communication.

In summary, this code of conduct will document the basics of unacceptable harassment, but it will also outline some pillars of healthy communication that we expect everyone to aspire to in order to keep our community together. We will enforce both.

Harassment
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Harassment includes, but is not limited to:

  1. Ridicule of a person for asking beginner questions, or for having different competitive goals for their participation in the game (e.g. ridiculing “jank” or “try-hard” attitudes).
  2. Offensive comments related to gender identity/expression, sexual orientation, disability, age, mental illness, neuro(a)typicality, physical appearance, race, religion, or lifestyle choices.
  3. Deliberate misgendering or deadnaming, or repeated accidental instances of the same with no visible effort to improve.
  4. Outing of any aspect of a person’s identity without their consent.
  5. Unwelcome physical, sexual, and/or romantic attention (including sexually-charged insults).
  6. Sexual imagery or discussion in a public space and/or without the consent of everyone present.
  7. Threats of violence, or incitement thereof (including even sarcastic encouragement to self-harm, e.g. “kill yourselves nerds”).
  8. Sustained disruption of discussion, including stalking, following, DMs, posting across multiple discord channels, etc after requests to cease.
  9. Publication of private communication without prior consent.

TM prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort. Therefore harassment does not include:

  • ‘Reverse’-isms, including ‘reverse racism’, ‘reverse sexism’, and ‘cisphobia’.
  • Reasonable communication of boundaries, such as “leave me alone,” “go away,” or “I’m not discussing this with you.”
  • Criticizing racist, sexist, cissexist, or otherwise oppressive behavior or assumptions.

Here is an example to demonstrate the behaviors we have in mind.

In this scenario, Person A’s comment is harmful and would be subject to moderation action. Person B calls out the problematic speech, and the Mod Team will support Person B’s comment: Person A: “I just spent the weekend at a white-exclusive Coding Bootcamp. It was so cool to see so many coders that all looked like me! I felt like I belonged, it was nice.” Person B: “Wow, you feel like you don’t fit in with BIPOC? That sounds a bit racist.”

In the inverse situation, the Mod Team will allow and support Person C’s comment, but Person D’s comment would be subject to moderation action: Person C: “I just spent the weekend at a BIPOC-exclusive Coding Bootcamp. It was so cool to see so many coders that all looked like me! I felt like I belonged, it was nice.” Person D: “Wow, you feel like you don’t fit in with white people? That sounds a bit racist.”

If you still have questions, see the Further Reading section for links that discuss the concepts in more detail.

Communication
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Interpersonal conflict is inevitable. When it happens, community members must strive to keep arguments focused on the subject of disagreement and understand the other party’s point of view. Antagonistic communication, which makes people defensive and distracts from the goal of understanding each other, is not allowed. This includes, but is not limited to:

  1. Ad hominem. This means attacking a person or group of people directly, rather than focusing on their actions or stated arguments.

    • Instead of, “You’re transphobic,” say “That comment seems transphobic” or “That comment hurts trans people.”
    • Instead of, “Goblin King Games is trash,” say “Goblin King Games shouldn’t have errated Seasick Stu again.”

  2. Tone policing. This means using someone else’s tone or emotions as part of the argument itself, i.e., “your argument isn’t valid unless you can express it calmly,” especially when the person is of a marginalized/less-privileged demographic.

    • If you feel that someone’s tone or emotions have obfuscated their argument too much to productively engage with, summon a Mod to help de-escalate and resolve the conflict.

  3. Concern trolling. This means ostensibly agreeing with someone’s main point, but complaining about how it’s expressed, usually on behalf of an imagined third party.

    • Instead of, “Sure nonbinary-inclusive language is important, but some people might not like having to stop saying ’ladies and gentlemen’,” say “Suppose I personally don’t want to change my language. What would you tell me?”
    • Be clear on whose behalf you are arguing, and argue from their perspective. This means overtly disagreeing, rather than pretending to agree. The former allows others to challenge you more productively.

  4. Assuming bad intent. This means accusing someone of deliberately violating the code or intending to hurt people or cause conflict, rather than attempting to understand why they disagree with you.

    • Instead of, “This person is toxic, let’s summon a Mod to ban them,” say “This person is violating the code of conduct, let’s summon a Mod to explain that to them.”
    • Simply put, falsely accusing a person with good intent of bad intent is destructive, and accurately accusing a person with bad intent of bad intent is the Mods’ job, not yours. So don’t do it either way!

You are encouraged to de-escalate public arguments when you can do so without resorting to antagonistic communication of your own. If you witness a code of conduct violation, you may point out to the offender specifically which point of the code you believe was violated. If an argument cannot be quickly de-escalated, or there is disagreement over interpreting the code, you should suspend discussion and summon a Mod immediately.

Language
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We want to make a server that feels welcoming and safe to everyone. That is why we ask all members to always be aware of the words they use. Words can be hurtful, even when there is no malicious intent behind them. Be aware that we are an international community; something that is inoffensive to you can be hurtful to someone else.

  1. Gender-neutral language. It is common in the English language to use words like, dude, bro or guys to refer to a diverse group of people. However, we ask our members to use unambiguously gender neutral language.

    • Instead of “Hey guys,” say “Hey everyone” or “Hey fellow players” or “Hey folks”
    • Instead of “men and women” or “ladies and gentlemen”, say “people”
    • Instead of “he or she”, say “they”

  2. Pronouns. TM encourages members to list their pronouns using the Roles channels. This helps us refer to each other correctly. If someone doesn’t have their pronouns listed, refer to them by their username or use the neutral they/them. Accidentally misgendering someone can happen. Apologise, take note, and move on. If it happens repeatedly or on purpose, we consider this harassment (see above).

  3. Ableist terms. Many ableist terms are commonly used in everyday life, as well as gaming spaces. While we understand that many of these words are considered by many to be harmless, we ask members to avoid them. These include:

    • Words that insult intelligence: stupid, dumb, idiotic, moron, etc.
    • Using disabilities and diseases outside of their relevant context
      • OK: “My mother needs cancer treatment” or “I am autistic and find this hard to deal with” or “As a therapist, I treat a lot of suicidal people.”
      • NOT OK: “This troupe composition is cancer” or “That video gave me autism” or “The current meta is making me suicidal.”

    We couldn’t possibly list every commonly used example of ableism. We encourage members to take a look at this list of disability-related terms:

    List of disability-related terms with negative connotations

  4. Racial Slurs. We are a multicultural community and will not tolerate any ethnic slurs, however veiled they may be. We use this list as our guidelines, but will act on anything drawn to our attention as related to hate groups.

Reporting
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If you witness either harassment or antagonistic communication as described above, whether targeting you or someone else, please contact the Mods via direct message. The Mods will respond as promptly as they can.

The current community Mod Team is:

  • dhosterman

The Mods will take all good-faith reports of code violations seriously and will work with you to ensure the community remains a safe space for you. This includes code violations occurring on other forums (e.g. the official Moonstone discord, reddit, facebook) and/or at any point in time.

The Mods will respect confidentiality requests in order to protect victims of abuse. The Mods may publicly name an abusive community member, or privately warn third parties, at their discretion if they believe it necessary for community health and safety. The Mods will not name harassment victims without their consent.

Enforcement
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Participants asked to stop any behavior are expected to comply immediately. Participants discussing their behavior with a Mod are expected to cease communication in any channels related to that behavior until the conversation with the Mod is complete.

The repertoire of penalties includes the following. Mods may repeat a certain penalty before escalating, or escalate to a more severe penalty immediately, at their discretion depending on offense severity.

  1. Gentle talking-to
  2. Firm talking-to and/or explicit warning
  3. Short suspension (e.g. ranging from 24 hours to 1 week)
  4. Long suspension (e.g. 1 or several months)
  5. Permanent ban from the server

This code applies to all parts of the TM Discord — be that in the channels, in DMs, or any events or tournaments organised by this discord channel. Offense history in other forums (e.g. the official Moonstone discord, reddit, facebook) shall be considered as precedent and/or grounds for penalties here. In the case of GKG-sponsored events, the Tournament Organizer (TO) may act under their discretion in accordance with either this code, GKG’s code, or both, and they may involve TM’s Mods at their discretion. In general, events are as much “community space” as discord, slack or other online forums are, and offenses in one space may be subject to sanctions in another.

Appeals
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The TM Mod Team will always strive to follow this Code of Conduct and create the best outcomes for the community. If the subject of a moderation action feels they were treated unfairly, the appeals process is as follows:

  1. Subject approaches a Mod of their choice with a desire to appeal a punitive action.
  2. Approached Mod talks to the Subject about the incident, gathering all the facts from the Subject’s perspective. The Subject should keep the following questions in mind while describing the situation:
    1. What was the incident that happened?
    2. What was the punitive action taken?
    3. Was this a first offense for the Subject or a repeat offense?
    4. Does the Subject express remorse or understanding for the offense?
    5. Are there any mitigating circumstances for the situation?
  3. Approached Mod provides conversation notes (screenshots preferred) to the Mod Team.
  4. The Mod Team discusses the issue and comes to a consensus within 48 hours.
  5. Approached Mod delivers decision to the Subject.

Mod Conduct
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Mods will always strive to remain impartial when resolving any incident. The Mods’ job is not to prove any one side right, nor to force people to agree with each other, but to encourage and maintain healthy communication.

Mods will recuse themselves from handling incidents in which they are either the offender or the offendee, or in which they have a personal stake in the argument. (If you try to exploit this by harassing the entire Mod Team simultaneously, the fabric of spacetime will fall apart and we’ll all be torn into our component atoms, so don’t do that.) Mods will recuse themselves from moderating their personal friends, or when not possible, they will communicate explicitly to that friend when they are wearing their “Mod hat”.

Any community member dissatisfied with the conduct of a particular Mod may appeal to the other Mods. In extreme cases of Mod misconduct, a Mod or Admin may be stripped of their title upon 2/3s majority agreement by the other Mods.

The Mod Team will always work to keep enough members to cover the needs of the Community. Upon reaching a majority vote by the Mod Team, nominations for additional Mods will be sought from the Community, and new Mods will be added based on Community approval. When the Admin and Mod Teams feel that a new Admin is needed, they will choose one or more Mods to be promoted to Admin, by unanimous vote.

Further Reading
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License and Attribution
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This policy is licensed under the Creative Commons Zero license. It is public domain, no credit and no open licensing of your version is required.

This policy is based on the example from the Green Level Clearance Discord Code of Conduct, Geek Feminism wiki, as well as the Stimhack Slack #uk Code of Conduct.

This document was last updated by the TM Mod Team on 2026-09-22.