Community Guidelines

Following are the common Community Guidelines for OurBlind on all its platforms. Abiding by the platforms’ Terms & Conditions is implied and required. These guidelines do not intend to cover every case, but to serve as a common framework. Each platform may have additional items due to its specific nature.

Rule 1: Accessibility Policy

This community must remain accessible for members with a variety of disabilities. Please do your best to do the following:

• Writing image descriptions is required for all images, GIFs, and custom emoji you post in this community. Using the alt text feature built into the platform is preferred, but you may also include it in the body of the post as an alternative if needed.

• Standard emoji are screen reader accessible and thus are allowed without descriptions, but please be mindful to avoid emoji spam.

• Audio content must also be transcribed if it does not already have a transcript or accessible subtitles, and you must describe both the visuals and audio for videos you post.

• No special characters or special fonts are allowed in your messages or in your username, as they are not screen reader accessible.

• No Unicode Braille, sim Braille, or ASCII Braille are allowed in your messages or your username, as they are also not fully screen reader accessible.

If you have questions about how to do any of these things, please feel free to ask for help. Do feel free to search the web about how to use the platform’s alt text feature.

Rule 2: Research and Advertisement

If you want to get feedback about your project from blind people, post a survey you are conducting about blind people, promote a blog or social media page you have made, advertize a product you are selling, advertize an event or another community, or similar activities you may not post this in this community without mod approval. You may also not DM our members or solicit DM’s from our members in any way without mod approval.

• Surveys are allowed when approved by a university ethics board, and must include contact information for the supervising party.

• If not approved by a university ethics board, academic or school surveys and questions of any other nature are not allowed.

• Common questions that are discussion-starters, such as “what makes X more accessible,” “how to make Y blind character representative,” etc. must not be duplicates of posts any newer than 6 months and are only accepted in mega-threads.

• Questions on developing products are not allowed.

• In rare cases, select surveys and research posts that are deemed to be especially important to the community that don’t adhere to these rules will be pre-approved by the moderators on their initiative and at their discretion.

Consider the following platform specific rules:

Rule 2.1: OurBlind Discord server

To request approval, please open a relevant ticket in the ⁠help-desk channel after reading the message posted in said channel. Within your ticket once you create it, please describe your project to the best of your ability and include a link to it if you have one for review.

If mods approve your request, you will be granted a role which will allow you to post in either the surveys forum or promotion channel, depending on which type of project you are sharing.

Rule 2.2: RBlind.com Lemmy instance

To share your request for research participants in the rblind.com/c/research community, contact the mods of that community.

Rule 2.3: r/Blind Reddit community

To request approval on r/Blind, message the mods. If approved, your post will be flared accordingly.

Additionally, before posting, please review our previous posts if your question has already been answered. This helps prevent repetitive discussions and allows our community to focus on new and unique topics.

Rule 2.4: Final Notes

Please allow one to two business days for us to respond to your request. We take our responsibilities here seriously, but this is a recreational and social space, not a paid job, and many of the mods have jobs outside of this community.

If you violate this rule and post your survey or promotion in any other channel without mod approval, or DM our members/solicit DMs from our members about your project without mod approval, your post will be removed and other potential moderator actions may be taken.

Rule 3: Adult Content

This community is welcoming to people of all ages, so must respect the needs and interests of its diverse members.

Rule 3.1: OurBlind Discord server

Some channels are age restricted and designated for discussion of adult topics. Adult topics are not allowed in any of the non-18+ channels, and minors may not enter the 18+ channels.

Directly posting or linking to pornography or promoting illegal activity is not allowed on this server, even in the 18+ channels.

Rule 3.2: RBlind.com Lemmy instance

Sensitive mature content should be marked NSFW. Off Topic NSFW content will not be tolerated in communities hosted on this instance. Members may subscribe to and post in NSFW communities hosted by other instances if they wish, so long as they are in compliance with the rules of those communities.

Rule 3.3 - r/Blind Reddit community

Sensitive mature content should be marked NSFW. Off Topic NSFW content will not be tolerated in this community.

Rule 4: Medical and Legal Advice

Do not give medical or legal advice such as medication or supplements to take or medical treatments to undergo. Non-medical recommendations such as types of sunglasses or assistive tools are OK, and sharing your own experiences with treatments and surgeries is also acceptable, but we are not doctors and should not make medical recommendations

Rule 5: Be Respectful

Above all else, this is the most important rule. It’s okay to disagree with someone and even have arguments, however, every interaction you have here must be carried out with respect for your fellow members.

Some guidelines include, but are not limited to:

• Hateful content such as racist, sexist, ableist, fatphobic or queerphobic content and slurs will not be tolerated.

• Harassment and personal attacks are unacceptable.

• Make sure you give everybody a chance to talk.

• Make space for others to participate in conversation bu using different channels, threads, posts or DMs.

• Use appropriate channels (Discord) for venting, ranting, trauma dumping, or other heavier posts for getting things off your chest and use appropriate titles (Lemmy and Reddit).

• Use everyone’s preferred pronouns. If you accidentally misgender somebody, politely accept their correction.

• Preface posts containing sensitive content with appropriate content and spoiler warnings. Note that the spoiler tag does not work with screen readers on some platforms, so a content warning is preferred.

Rule 6: Moderation

Most rule violations will result in a notice, then potentially a time-out given to the offending user. Subsequent misbehavior or particularly egregious violations of community rules may result in other punitive actions against offending users up to and including the issuance of a ban.

Moderators ultimately retain the right to determine what constitutes a rule violation such as misconduct, disrespectful behavior, Etc.

If you have concerns or are experiencing harassment, please contact our mod team:

• On the OurBlind Discord server react with the 🆘 (SOS) or use the ticket system in #help-desk;

• On the r/Blind Reddit community use the report feature or DM the mod team as a whole “r/blind;”

• On the RBlind.com Lemmy instance use the report feature or DM the listed mods.

Please note that moderation of the affiliated OurBlind platforms should take place on each platform.

Please do your best to follow these rules and maintain a positive, inclusive, and safe community. At the same time, use appropriate resources to tailor your experience regarding content you don’t like, when it doesn’t break any rules.

We’re also very open to feedback and encourage the use of resources on each platform to provide feedback and foster discussion.