statement of community values and expectations

by the Six Co-Bloggers of ITM

Dear friends,

If you happen to be on Facebook, we hope that you will join our lively In the Middle Community Group. It's only been running for about a week and we already have 500 members as well as some vigorous and timely discussions unfolding. We just posted the following statement of community values and expectations there for feedback. Please feel free to comment here as well, since the ethos is the same on the blog (even if the rules for screenshots and so forth must be different in this space: here things are far more public).

In the Middle [Community] is a moderated community for discussing posts from the blog In the Middle as well as related humanities concerns.

We ask all of our members to remember the ground rules of our community’s description: ITM is a feminist, anti-racist, queer affirmative and refuge making space. We repudiate white supremacist dreams of both the Middle Ages and contemporary nations. We foster visions of the past and future that privilege diversity, community and welcome over intolerance, dreams of segregation, and pervasive violence. We reject fear of difference. We reject misogyny. We reject homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia. We turn to the past to imagine better futures.

The moderators of this group (Jeffrey Cohen, Leila K. N. Ellis, Jonathan Hsy, Mary Kate Hurley, Karl Steel and Cord Whitaker) monitor postings here carefully, and ask that members observe the following rules:

• We ask that members avoid harassment, abuse, and trolling of any kind - we understand that debate may at times be vigorous, and we encourage a diversity of opinions, approaches, and ideas about the Middle Ages (see our ethos statement above) but above all we wish to maintain a safe space for our members to discuss the issues of the field, historically, politically, and socially. 
• We ask that our members make a good-faith effort to link their announcements and postings in the group to ongoing conversations we are having in the field.
• We ask that members keep our discussions on this page within the ITM community: that is, we ask that members not screenshot and share conversations that take place here in other fora or groups without the permission of all involved. Likewise, we ask that members not post screenshots from other groups here without permission of the originators.

Violation of these ground rules should be reported to the moderators, listed above; we will take action based on the severity of the situation. We reserve the right to dismiss members who violate our policies.