Indivisible Illinois Community Standards

By joining Indivisible Illinois you agree to align with the mission, vision and values outlined here as well as the community standards below.

Social Media & Norms For Meetings

Social media is creating new kinds of communities. Indivisible Illinois encourages leaders to use their social networks to share experiences to raise awareness about issues that are important to them. You may encounter opinions that are different from yours. We believe this can lead to important conversations about difficult topics. 

• We ask that you adhere to the following guidelines when sharing or speaking.
• Always be respectful and polite even when disagreeing
• Do not engage in hate speech, which directly attacks people based on their: 
  • Race,
  • Ethnicity,
  • National origin,
  • Religious affiliation,
  • Sexual orientation,
  • Sex, gender, or gender identity, or
  • Physical and/or mental disabilities or diseases
• Make sure your social media posts are accurate and come from reputable sources. 
• Do not post material that is threatening, harassing, illegal, obscene, defamatory, libelous, or hostile towards any individual, entity or other leaders in our Indivisible Illinois community.
• We urge people to be conscious of their audience when posting and avoid distasteful or offensive content. 
• Counter-speech in the form of accurate information and alternative viewpoints can help create a safer and more respectful environment.

H/T Facebook, Poynter Institute, Association of Fundraising Professionals

Read: Indivisible Illinois mission, vision and goals statement.

In Person Meetings & Zoom Meet-Ups:

1. Respect the Discussion and the Facilitators. Listen actively when they speak. Listen to the facilitators, especially when they lay out the guidelines for discussion.
2. Share the air and encourage others. This is like the “step up/step back” rule: step up to encourage those who have not participated, step back to make sure you are not dominating the conversation.
3. Practice good faith. Do not assign motives. We cannot know the reasons that a person expresses an idea. Assume the best intentions in case of disagreement.
4. Think consciously of our social positions, allowing us to work across our race, gender, sexuality and social differences in ways that are supportive.
5. Make “I” Statements. Rather than objective assertions, statements framed as “I think…” and “I feel….” and “In my experience…” should be used in political discussions.
6. In real time, we will deal with negative or unwanted comments with the oops and ouch system.  Anyone can call out an ouch. A person can say oops to indicate acknowledgement and regret. Any further discussion can be addressed on the issue after the call.

Room Etiquette: 

• Use the raise-hand feature or write “question” in the chat to join the conversation.
• Be as present as possible: Turn on your video if you can.
• Keep back and forth in the chat to a minimum and on topic in agenda.

Group coordinators are invited to join the weekly statewide leaders call. More information here.

Related:

Everyday Principles of Transformative Justice

Feminist Principles: What they are and how they serve as a guidepost for our work Produced collaboratively by Oxfam Canada staff September 2018

What is Feminist process? 

Gendering and Engendering Process 

VIOLATIONS of COMMUNITY STANDARDS:

Who Makes Decision When Community Standards Are Broken in our community:

Indivisible Illinois Executive Board (Governing Body of our community)

GENERAL RULE:

Any leaders violating our Indivisible Illinois Community Standards may be removed from our community Facebook groups & social media, our website, our listserv and removed from our Indivisible Illinois Local Leaders Collaborative Meet-Up monthly calls.

When a leader is removed, a new representative from the local indivisible group is welcome to join our community to collaborate moving forward.  We are here to collaborate effectively with leaders who want to work within our community standards.