Community Guidelines

Progressive speculative fiction creators have dreamed more just worlds for all people, and today’s activists are building the foundations of those futures today. These futures, however, require that we intentionally engage in creating resilient communities, full of hope, joy, growth, and collective care. A better future lies in connection, not isolation.

As we seek to create the essential pathways for intentional, respectful engagement that must be the bedrock of the Sirens community, we have created these community guidelines. You are required to adhere to these guidelines in all Sirens spaces, both online and at the conference itself. These guidelines are meant to complement the Sirens Terms of Service, Anti-Harassment Policy, Inclusivity Statement, and Accessibility Policy, all of which continue to apply. Failure to follow these guidelines (or Sirens’s other policies) can result in loss of your conference registration and access to the Sirens community.

Dream Big and Bold and Bright

Sirens believes that we can build better futures. But as we have learned from the activists doing the hard work of building those futures, we cannot build what we have not yet dreamed—and we cannot dream fully until we have learned from the expertise and lived experiences of those around us.

As a member of the Sirens community, we expect you to choose to dream these more hopeful, more joyful, more just futures—and further, to actively seek to learn from others as we envision these better worlds for all marginalized people:

We read widely and progressively in the speculative space and actively seek works that challenge our assumptions—and we remember that individual works are individual viewpoints and not representative of the entirety of a people, identity, culture, or community.
We engage not only with fiction, but with essays, criticism, scholarly analysis, and available data.
We reach for the stars, even as we understand that perfectionism is often more damaging than helpful.

Help the Arc of the Universe Bend Toward Justice

Sirens has intentionally chosen to focus on progressive speculative fiction and how each of us, individually and collectively, can build those future worlds. Every day, each of us makes choices, some of which help create a more just world, many of which do not, and some of which are actively harmful to justice for other people. Even as we are marginalized in some spaces, we are privileged in others. We all have much to learn from the lived experiences of those around us, and when they choose to share those experiences, we have a profound opportunity to listen.

As a member of the Sirens community, we expect you to choose justice for marginalized people:

We recognize that equal rights are not a zero-sum game: making the world a more just place does not decrease our rights, only our privilege.
We learn from the work of those sharing their expertise and lived experiences in books, in articles, on social media, and during presentations, and we do not expect the marginalized individuals of the Sirens community to be available to provide us with on-demand education.
As we learn and grow, we offer a helping hand to others who share our lived experiences and previous viewpoints, so that they can also learn and grow.
We make space for others’ hope and joy, even when, especially when, it may look different from our own.
We actively welcome others into our spaces and our community—and accept that, as we all help the arc of the moral universe bend toward justice, the Sirens community will change and grow as well, sometimes in ways that may make us uncomfortable.

Commit to Growth, Trust, Accountability, and Connection

Building a community requires much of its members, especially in a world with systems designed to divide, to exhaust, and to commodify our interactions.

Growth: As a member of the Sirens community, we expect you to consistently choose an ongoing evolution of learning, unlearning, and growth:

We practice both curiosity and humility, as we all have much to learn.
We practice self-awareness, acknowledge and challenge our assumptions, and consider how our identities impact the way we engage.
We seek open and constructive dialogue with each other, and ask genuine questions for understanding, including when someone says something that we disagree with.
We commit to asking ourselves why we are speaking—or why we are not—and to gauging how much we speak in any given conversation, so that we can balance both sharing and learning.
We are willing to listen actively to those around us and make space for those more marginalized than we are to both speak and be heard.
We are open to experiencing discomfort, particularly when engaging in difficult conversations, knowing that discomfort often leads to learning and growth.

Trust: As a member of the Sirens community, we expect you to consistently choose vulnerability and trust, and to prove yourself worthy of trust, even when it is very hard:

We commit to speaking our truth—not just what we perceive others want to hear—and to expressing our boundaries, needs, and limits.
We allow others to choose how much they want to share about themselves.
We honor the boundaries, needs, and limits of both ourselves and others, and we commit to taking a break when we find that we can no longer trust ourselves in certain conversations, so that we do not cause harm.
We will flag content and conversations that include sexual assault, racialized violence, self-harm, or other sensitive topics.
We seek consent before sharing personal experiences that may require much of the listener.
We keep others’ confidences.
We seek consent before photographing, recording, or sharing screenshots that involve other participants.
We honor personal space and seek consent before making physical contact with others.

Accountability: As a member of the Sirens community, we expect you to choose to hold yourself accountable—and we expect you to choose to hold others accountable for their participation in our community as well:

We make our choices about how to engage with and contribute to the Sirens community thoughtfully and intentionally.
We follow Sirens’ policies, including its Anti-Harassment Policy and its Accessibility Policy.
We point out harmful behavior, such as microaggressions and exclusion.
We approach conversations with empathy and grace, recognizing that our goal is growth and connection, not perfection.
We understand that conflict can be productive, and we refrain from tone policing or otherwise using someone’s anger or impoliteness as an excuse to ignore the underlying issue.
We know that we all make mistakes and may say and do things that make Sirens less respectful, less welcoming, and less protected. We own up to the impact of our words and actions, regardless of whether or not the impact reflects our original intention, and work to repair the harm.

Connection: As a member of the Sirens community, we expect you to choose connection over isolation and to choose the good of our community over your own individualism.

We seek to build connections with others by offering empathy and compassion to others, by prioritizing their needs, and by practicing both self-care and community care.
We use inclusive language, including using people’s correct pronouns and gender-inclusive language.
We do not assume pronouns, genders, sexual preferences, racial or ethnic identities, disabilities or neurodivergences, or other identities, and we avoid marginalizing or tokenizing each other based on an identity.
We understand that honesty and kindness can co-exist and choose to approach conversations with both.
We understand that some of us are more vulnerable than others, and we will build a protected space in which all our voices are valid and valued, we all feel like we belong, and we are all comfortable collaborating and engaging in dialogue.
We remember that communities are shared experiences, but given the needs of its members, are not always equal experiences; communities require that you give, sometimes more than you receive.

Create Something Extraordinary

If a more joyful, more hopeful, more just future exists, it will be only because people intentionally, thoughtfully, relentlessly engaged in building it. At Sirens, we choose to engage in that building so that our futurisms are the better worlds that we want to see. We are, collectively, students, educators, engineers, activists, community-builders, scholars, archivists, and creators, all working together to create a more beautiful, more vibrant, more inclusive world.

As a member of the Sirens community, we expect you to choose to engage in the learning, growth, and dreaming necessary to build the future we want to see:

We are courageously creative—and we are prepared to make mistakes as we learn and grow.
We understand that our revolution can only succeed as a collective endeavor and we are committing to building a community.
While our revolution will require rage and grief, we also choose hope and joy and actively seek shared experiences that make space for hope and joy.
We are committed to building a community focused on bold dreams for the future and building current systems that can make those dreams real.

Conflict Resolution

Sirens’s community guidelines are intended to actively build a culture of inclusion, belonging, and connection, so that we may create a vibrant community and a protected space for learning and engagement. We offer the following resolution options for those encountering conflict at Sirens. We do ask, however, that any issue that is a violation of the Sirens’s Terms of Service or Anti-Harassment Policy be brought immediately to the attention of the Sirens team.

Discussion: At Sirens, we commit to growth, trust, accountability, and connection, which often happens through difficult conversations. If you have any concerns with someone and you feel safe and comfortable speaking with the offender, please inform them that they have affected you negatively. Try to assume the best and react in good faith. Remember to be kind and seek to understand: If a situation makes it hard to be kind, try resolving the conflict once emotions have cooled down. Note that often these discussions are best handled in private, as that can reduce defensiveness. Frequently, the offending behavior is unintentional and the accidental offender and offended will resolve the issue through discussion and, if warranted, apology.
Escalation: While we hope that most conflict can be solved in a collaborative fashion, so the community can learn and grow together, the Sirens team is committed to ensuring that Sirens is a more protected space. If the offender does not take responsibility for their impact, is actively harassing you, or you do not feel comfortable talking to them directly, Sirens volunteers can step in to mediate. If you need to contact Sirens volunteers to mediate a discussion or to report harassment:

At Sirens: Notify our information desk or our Safety and Accessibility Coordinator as soon as you are able
Online (e.g., on Sirens’ Discord): Notify our moderation team (if applicable) or email us at help@sirensconference.org as soon as you are able.
Sanctions: If someone is engaging in harassment or otherwise harming the Sirens community, they are expected to stop immediately when asked. If that person continues after being asked to stop, Sirens team members may take any action they deem appropriate, including warning the offender, revoking conference registration and all access to Sirens, or contacting third-party services (e.g., social media platforms), the Omni New Haven, and applicable authorities.