Digital community covenant
We need your help to keep the Festival of Homiletics online space as valuable, authentic, and safe as possible. This means a few rules of the road – a covenant of collegiality and mutual respect:
- Don’t Spam or Self-Promote: While we all love a little self-promotion (this is still the internet after all!), for everyone to get the most out of this space, please don’t just mindlessly post about your latest work or promote your idea.
- Share Stories and Experiences, Not Advice: Nothing builds a beautiful conversation faster than sharing your stories and experiences, and nothing shuts one down faster than just posting advice. If you’ve written the words, “you should…” hold up. On the other hand, if you find yourself writing, “In my experience…” keep going!
- Troll Elsewhere: There are plenty of places you can spend your time today where trolling is going to get you a lot more attention. If you’re tempted to troll here, head on over to those platforms first and get it out of your system.
- What Happens in this Digital Space Stays in this Space: Conversations that started here should remain here, in order to create a trustworthy space. However, be advised that this is the internet, and a certain amount of circumspection is required: don’t share what you wouldn’t want widely known.
- This Is Not a Dating App: Festival attendees are not in this space looking for life partners. Please refrain from engaging in chat or comments that could be construed as overly friendly or harassing. Sexual harassment will not be tolerated, and should be reported to a Community Host as soon as it occurs.
- Disagree Agreeably: Here, we speak with civility, kindness, and charity, even–or rather, especially–when there is disagreement. Extend your digital colleagues the benefit of the doubt, and refrain from posts with vulgar language, personal attacks of any kind, or offensive comments that target or disparage any person or group based on race, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, socioeconomic circumstance, dis/ability, political perspective, theological commitments, and/or ecclesial tradition.
- Have questions? We’re here. If you see a post in the feed the violates these guidelines, flag it in Whova or reach out to us at festival@luthersem.edu. Our Community Hosts will step in to contact the member privately or remove the offending post.
