Twin Cities Geeks | # **Welcome to Twin Cities Geeks**

Welcome to Twin Cities Geeks

Twin Cities Geeks Rules

1. Be excellent to each other!
   Treat people with the same patience, fairness, and respect that you want and feel you deserve. The Golden Rule is the gold standard for a reason. Here is a list of behaviors that will not be tolerated. It is not comprehensive.
   
   1A. Name calling and aggressive vulgarity directed towards members of the community, slurs, and hate speech are inappropriate and will result in a warning and your post/comment being removed.
   1B. Jokes about domestic abuse, sexual assault, real-world genocide, and body shaming are inappropriate and will result in a warning and your post/comment being removed.
   1C. Deliberately misgendering a person is disrespectful at best, hate speech against gender-diverse people at worst, and will not be tolerated. This applies for members of the group, individuals who are public figures, and those who are not members of the group.
   1D. Pornography and other images violating Facebook's TOS will be removed.
   1E. Any representation, iconography, or advocacy of the stated ideologies of any hate group (included but not limited to: Nazism, the Ku Klux Klan, Westboro Baptist Church, or as listed on the Southern Poverty Law Center website as a current or active hate group) is expressly prohibited. If you post something in Twin Cities Geeks or elsewhere on Facebook that supports or appears to be sympathizing with hate groups or advocacy of their stated ideologies and/or your profile has content promoting hate groups or hate speech, moderators may immediately remove you from the group. If your profile has hate symbols or hate speech, we reserve the right to deny your request to join the group.
   1F. Trolling (posting inflammatory, extraneous, intentionally spoilery, straw man, or off-topic messages with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion) will not be tolerated and will result in a warning and your post/comments being removed.
   1G. Sealioning (asking the same question or questions/making the same fallacious assertion or assertions over and over again after having already received an answer/rebuttal) demonstrates bad-faith participation in a conversation and will not be tolerated. If you continue to sealion after an OP (Original Poster) or an admin asks you not to, you will receive a warning and your comments will be removed.
   1H. Threatening group members will not be tolerated. Examples of threats include but are not limited to tagging authorities, promising to or implying bringing violence to a person, doxxing, or otherwise trying to upset their privacy, safety, or wellness.
   
   Constructive discussion is always encouraged. Here is a handy guide for how to respectfully and effectively disagree with someone: http://twincitiesgeek.com/disagree/
   
2. Promoting and selling is OK within reason. It is totally okay to promote something up to once per month as long as you feel it is of interest to the Twin Cities Geek community. This includes but is not limited to businesses, clubs, bands, shows, blogs, podcasts, streams, games, events, Etsy stores, art, photographs, cosplays, music, videos, yard sales, and whatever else. It is also totally okay to sell items or offer items for free on Twin Cities Geeks.
   
   If we notice that the only way you ever participate in the group is to advertise your business, you may be removed at moderator discretion.
   
3. Be mindful not to clutter up the group with spam. It not necessary to promote your event more than once. In the case of an ongoing project, organization, or business, do not promote it more than once per month. Additionally, try not to make multiple threads about the same topic, even if you have multiple links to share. If there is already an active thread about, for instance, CONvergence, then keep CONvergence talk/links in that thread. If there is already a thread about the new Star Trek movie, keep all Star Trek movie talk/links in that thread, and so on. When multiple people share the same thing, we will generally remove the most recent shares.
   
4. Write a short description or commentary on every link, photo, video, event, post, or file that you share with the group. Even if the original post already has a comment or description with it, you must add your own. Doing this has two very important benefits. First, it adds context to what you're sharing right at the top of your post, which is both good manners and helpful to many people with different types of cognitive abilities. Second, it can be very valuable to blind members of our community who use screen reading software.
   
5. Do not harass fellow group members in private messages. If a fellow group member tells you to stop contacting them and you subsequently continue to send them private messages, that will be considered harassment. Harassment in private messages brought to the attention of the admins with screenshots may result in a warning being issued or in immediate removal from the group.
   
6. Do not derail threads. If an OP (Original Poster) or an admin politely asks you to please stay on topic, respect their wishes. If you continue to post comments that are off-topic or you sealion after the OP or admin asks you not to, you will receive a warning and your comments will be removed. You are always welcome to begin a new post to discuss whatever topics you want.
   
7. We reserve the right to remove or deny access to the group to anyone whom we believe to be a danger to our community. Additionally, repeated rule violations will result in your being removed from Twin Cities Geeks with no appeal. Generally, this takes three strikes AND a moderator vote except where explicitly stated otherwise. We really do try to give everyone a fair shake.
   
8. All Missing Persons posts must originate from law enforcement jurisdictions, local news outlets, or reputable organizations. Reputable organizations include but are not limited to Missing Children Minnesota, Jacob Wetterling Resource Center, or Minnesota United for Missing Persons.
   
9. Enjoy yourself! This group bridges the various geek communities in Minnesota. Come here to find out what's going on in the broader world of Twin Cities geekdom and fandom, to hang out, to have discussions, to share your passions, and to meet new people. Twin Cities Geeks is a reflection of ourselves, so let's make it awesome.
   

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Additional Facebook Groups

• Twin Cities Geek Squee Space: A group to provide positive, uplifting, cute, adorable, joyful, and inspiring posts for your Facebook feed as a way to improve your mental health on a daily basis. This group is politics-free. See the rules for acceptable posts.
• TCG Toy & Book Drive Crew/Contacts: Want to help with our annual Holiday drive? Join this group!
• Twin Cities Geek Supporters: This Facebook group is for those who support Twin Cities Geek on Patreon. patreon.com/twincitiesgeek