Community guidelines: Online
Follow, fund and support what you like, don’t worry about what you don’t! (Unless it’s offensive or discriminatory, see more about that below.)
Be cool!
Our goal is to build a truly independent film community. That means the actions of one reflect on us all. You’ve come here to support movies and independent creators. So, be supportive! Don’t use obscene, hateful or harassing language. This community is a safe space for everyone regardless of any status, race, religious creed, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, sexual orientation or military/veteran status.
Use your real name.
Your account should be built using your real name — whatever name you use to operate in the world should be the name you use to send and receive messages on Seed&Spark.
Healthy debate only.
We are open to healthy debate, but this place is for making movies and expanding the imagination, so there shouldn’t be any reason for it to get nasty. Debate the relative merits of a shot or methods for effectively increasing representation and inclusion. We’re not debating if lack of representation is because “that’s not what people want to buy.” Cool?
Do no harm.
Creators in particular are expected to do the research required to ensure their projects and presence on the site are not perpetuating harm to any segment of the community. (Especially if you’re telling a story that is not your own.) We may decline to host a project or block a user’s profile if we believe their presence may cause harm.
Don’t spam.
Please don't SPAM — not for your project or anyone else’s. You know when you’re spamming versus sending thoughtful messages to connect with people who are likely to share your interest. Nobody likes spam. (Except as musubi or french fries, let’s be honest.)
If someone sends you a spammy or abusive message, you can flag them, which will immediately stop their messages from appearing in your inbox. If you notice any behavior on the site that you think we need to know about, please contact us with details.
Don’t steal.
Messaging within Seed&Spark is meant to be just that — in-site messaging. Posting messages from Seed&Spark on other platforms for the purposes of mocking or making fun will result in losing your account privileges. If you’d like to post or quote, check with the person who sent you the message!
Community guidelines: In-person events
Seed&Spark is committed to providing a welcoming and harassment-free environment for participants of all races, gender and trans statuses, sexual orientations, physical abilities, physical appearances, beliefs, and beyond. Our goal is to cultivate respectful and equitable community spaces — wherever we gather.
This isn’t an exhaustive list of everything you can and can’t do — rather, it’s a set of guidelines to promote the sort of behavior that will make Seed&Spark events a safe and enriching experience for all participants.
If you are attending a Seed&Spark event, even if it’s hosted by another organization, you agree to:
Be considerate and kind in speech and actions, and actively seek to acknowledge and respect the boundaries of other attendees. Everyone is the expert of their own experience!
Refrain from demeaning, discriminatory, or harassing behavior and speech. These include, but are not limited to: deliberate intimidation; stalking; unwanted photography or recording; sustained or willful disruption of talks or other events; inappropriate physical contact; unwelcome sexual attention; and use of sexual or discriminatory imagery, comments, or jokes. As such, racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, and other discriminatory language or actions will not be tolerated. If you feel that someone has harassed you or otherwise treated you inappropriately, please alert any member of the conference team.
Take care of each other. Alert a member of the conference team if you notice a dangerous situation, someone in distress, or violations of this code of conduct, even if they seem inconsequential.
If any attendee engages in harassing behavior, the conference organizers may take any lawful action we deem appropriate, including but not limited to warning the offender or asking the offender to leave the conference. (If you feel you have been unfairly accused of violating this code of conduct, you should contact the conference team with a concise description of your grievance; any grievances filed will be considered by appropriate members of the Seed&Spark team.)
We welcome your feedback on this, and we thank you for working with us to make it a safe, enjoyable, and friendly experience for everyone who participates.
All due credit to PWL Camp, ORD Camp and the Django Project, upon whose codes of conduct this is very much based. By extension, credit to SRCCON’s Code of Conduct, Citizen Code of Conduct, and Theorizing the Web code of conduct “from which [ORD Camp has] extensively borrowed.” General thanks to the Ada Initiative’s “how to design a code of conduct for your community.”
ORD Camp’s version of the above text is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Seed&Spark will remove people completely at our own discretion based on our guidelines. Once an account is flagged for any reason, it goes under review and can be subject to removal.
There are more no-no's outlined in the Terms of Service ( to which you must agree to use our platform ), but presumably if you're breaking those rules, you're probably not the kind of person who spends too much time doing your homework on our Community Guidelines - online. Sigh.
Violating the Community Guidelines - online means you’re at risk of having your account suspended or removed completely, so these guidelines function more like rules of the road.
Thank you to some of the sites we used for guidance: Woot Woot Sound, The MarySue, Mozilla.
