Code of Conduct

Our Goal

Ensuring that everyone in the SoleSavy community feels welcomed, included, valued, and respected is a big priority for us. We ask all SoleSavy community members to be responsible for their words, actions, and behaviours, and to take ownership for the impact they have on others.

Applicability and Scope

This Code of Conduct applies to all of SoleSavy’s community’s spaces, including public channels, private channels, and direct messages, both online and off, as well as any in-person events. Anyone who violates this Code of Conduct may be sanctioned or expelled from these spaces at the discretion of SoleSavy.

Toward a Welcoming and Safe Environment

We hope to create an environment in which diverse individuals can collaborate and interact in a positive and affirming way. Examples of behaviour that contributes to creating this sort of environment include:

  • Using welcoming and inclusive language
  • Being respectful of differing viewpoints and experiences
  • Gracefully accepting constructive criticism
  • Focusing on what is best for the overall community
  • Showing empathy towards other community members

Anti-Harassment Statement

SoleSavy is dedicated to creating an inclusive environment for everyone. We do not tolerate harassment of community members in any form. Examples of harassment include: 

  • Offensive comments related to gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, mental illness, neuro(a)typicality, physical appearance, pregnancy status, veteran status, political affiliation, marital status, body size, age, race, national origin, ethnic origin, nationality, immigration status, language, religion or lack thereof, or other identity marker. This includes anti-Indigenous/Nativeness and anti-Blackness.
  • Unwelcome comments regarding a person’s lifestyle choices and practices, including those related to food, health, parenting, relationships, drugs, and employment.
  • Deliberate misgendering, using inappropriate pronouns, or use of “dead” or rejected names.
  • Gratuitous or off-topic sexual images or behaviour in spaces where they’re not appropriate.
  • Threats of violence.
  • Incitement of violence towards any individual or group, including encouraging a person to commit suicide or to engage in self-harm.
  • Deliberate intimidation.
  • Stalking or following—online or in the physical world.
  • Harassing photography or recording, including logging online activity for harassment purposes.
  • Sustained disruption of discussion.
  • Unwelcome sexual attention.
  • Patterns of inappropriate social contact, such as requesting/assuming inappropriate levels of intimacy with others.
  • Continued one-on-one communication after requests to cease.
  • Deliberate “outing” of any aspect of a person’s identity without their consent except as necessary to protect vulnerable people from intentional abuse.
  • Publication of non-harassing private communication.
  • Jokes that resemble the above still count as harassment even if meant satirically or ironically.

If you have questions or concerns about these issues please feel free to message a Community Leader or ask for an opportunity to explore the issue with another SoleSavy team member.

Behaviours we actively discourage

While not classified as harassment, these behaviours are inappropriate and detract from the health of the SoleSavy community. Repeated display of these behaviours may result in disciplinary action from SoleSavy. The Community Team reserves the right to take any action they deem appropriate, up to and including expulsion from the community in repeated or extreme cases. These behaviours include but are not limited to: 

  • Behaving in a way that could lead some to feel excluded or marginalized.
  • Downplaying the value of others’ contributions.
  • Belittling someone’s ideas in front of others (directly or indirectly, eg. subtweeting).
  • Being passive aggressive, condescending, or demeaning towards others.

Other Violations

In addition to the behaviours listed above, SoleSavy strictly prohibits:

  • Reselling of any product
  • Scamming
  • Leaking information to non-members
  • Promoting or facilitating the purchase of fake/UA/rep products of any kind

Engaging in these behaviours will result in immediate expulsion from the community, with no refund.

Commitment to Self-Improvement

We understand that none of us are perfect. It’s expected that all of us, regardless of our backgrounds, will from time to time fail to live up to these high standards. What matters isn’t having a perfect track record, but owning up to your mistakes and making a clear and persistent effort to improve.

If you are approached as having (consciously or otherwise) acted in a way that might make other community members feel unwelcome, refrain from being defensive; remember that if another community member calls you out, it likely took a great deal of courage for them to do so. The best way to respect that courage is to acknowledge your mistake, apologize, and move on—with a renewed commitment to do better.

That said, repeated or severe violations of this Code of Conduct can and will be addressed by SoleSavy and can lead to disciplinary actions. If a community member engages in harassing behaviour, SoleSavy may take any action it deems appropriate, including warning the offender or expelling them from the community with no refund.

Reporting Harassment

If you are being harassed by a member of our community, notice that someone else is being harassed, or have any other concerns, please contact a Community Leader. If the person who is harassing you is a Community Leader or is a SoleSavy employee, they will not be involved in handling or resolving the incident.

The Community Leader will respond to any complaint as promptly as possible. If you do not get a timely response (for example, if no Community Leaders are currently online) then please put your personal safety and well-being first, and consider logging out and/or contacting the Community Leader by email, as indicated in their Slack profile.

This Code of Conduct applies to our community’s spaces, but if you are being harassed by a member of our community outside our spaces, we still want to know about it. We will take all good-faith reports of harassment by our members seriously. This includes harassment outside our spaces and harassment that took place at any point in time. This also includes harassment of any SoleSavy employee outside our spaces. The SoleSavy Community Team reserves the right to exclude people from the community based on their past behaviour, including behaviour outside of our spaces and behaviour towards people who are not in this community.

In order to protect the entire Community Team from abuse and burnout, we reserve the right to reject any report we believe to have been made in bad faith. Reports intended to silence legitimate criticism may be deleted without response.

If you are subject to or witness unacceptable behaviour, or have any other concerns, please notify a Community Leader as soon as possible. In your report, please include:

  1. Name of the reporter (your name)
  2. Names of all people involved
  3. When and in which channel it occurred 
  4. What happened
  5. Any additional context (e.g. is the harassment ongoing) 

Enforcement Process

Every Code of Conduct violation report will be treated with seriousness and care. If a member’s immediate safety and security is threatened, the SoleSavy Community team may take any action that they deem appropriate, up to and including expulsion from the community. In less urgent situations, at least two Community team members will discuss the offense and mutually arrive at a suitable response, which will be shared with the offender privately. Whatever the resolution that they decide upon, the decision of the Community Team members involved in a violation case will be considered final.

We will respect confidentiality requests for the purpose of protecting victims of abuse. At our discretion, we may publicly name a person about whom we’ve received harassment complaints, or privately warn third parties about them, if we believe that doing so will increase the safety of our members or the general public. We will not name harassment victims without their affirmative consent.

Consequences

Violations of the Code of Conduct will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. Participants asked to stop any harassing behaviour are expected to comply immediately. SoleSavy operates with a three-strikes rule and will issue written warnings for each offense; however, if a participant engages in harassing behaviour, the SoleSavy Community Team may take any action they deem appropriate, up to and including expulsion from the community and identification of the participant as a harasser to other members. At the discretion of the admins, or by request, one or more of the parties involved may request to discuss the violation and how to avoid similar situations in the future. Additionally, SoleSavy reserves the right to expel any community member who has cancelled their membership and continues to exhibit inappropriate behaviour deemed harmful to the health of the community within the remaining term of their membership.