- The apothecary is meant to be a supportive, friendly community. We ask that you do your best to keep heated discussion and arguments in #politics:the-apothecary.club. If a conversation with another user starts to become heated, please either try to de-escalate the situation, stop the discussion outright, or move to the politics channel. If you have any concerns about another user, please come to the mods, and do not confront the user directly, unless the situation is especially urgent.
- If another user calls off a conversation, respect their wishes and do not continue the conversation. This includes someone saying, "I'm not comfortable talking about this", "I'm done here", or blatently trying to change the topic.
- When wondering if it's okay to share or screenshot a conversation, always tend towards confidentiality, and get explicit permission from everyone in the screenshot before sharing.
- While heavy topics are allowed, we ask that you make judicious use of content warnings for heavy content, including mental health and self harm. If you are planning on starting a conversation you expect to go down this path, please use one of our two vents channels: #vent:the-apothecary.club and #vents-private:the-apothecary.club (ask for an invite). If a conversation in another chat drifts into a discussion of heavy topics, do your best to use content warnings, and move to a vent room if the conversation keeps going.
- The vent rooms exist in to provide a space for members to vent freely, without worrying about perceptions. As such, when someone is using a vent room, do not try to dispute them, argue with them, or call them out. For the time being, this is their space. Responses should be supportive. If you believe there is an issue with something someone is saying, discuss this with a moderator, and do not confront them directly, unless urgent.
- Many people here are very nerdy, and that's worderful! But unfortunately, our conversations can sometimes occupy a room and push other people out. To help with this, without stiffling wonderful, nerdy discourse, we have #nerds:the-apothecary.club. We ask that you bring your nerdiness in the nerds room, so that we all can enjoy it, and no one is left feeling pushed out.
- Our community has many members who are minors or otherwise uninterested in seeing NSFW, lewd, or sexual content. For their sake, we ask that you refrain from posting NSFW, lewd, or sexual content, with the exeption of in #nsfw:the-apothecary.club.
- Open support for racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, aphobia, audism, misogyny, facism, etc is prohibited. This includes in #politics:the-apothecary.club. These are not valid political "opinions", and are not defensible, even as "devil's advocate"
- No personal attacks
- Do not call for violence against any person or group
- Be mindful of other's right to use and be comfortable in the space as well
- Moderators may use their discretion when a situation could be deemed to make the space uncomfortable for other users
These rules apply not just to all rooms in the Apothecary community, but also to any interactions between members in DMs, other rooms, or even other platforms. Of course, our moderation team can't see messages in these contexts, and we rely on reports to help in these situations. If you'd like to report inappropriate behavior, please start a DM with one of our moderators. All conversations between you and a moderator are confidential between you and the mod team by default, and on your request, confidential between you and the specific mod you messaged. If anonyminity is a concern, the usage of an anonymous alt account is allowed.
"Members" of the Apothecary include all members of rooms in the Apothecary community, and all users registered on the :the-apothecary.club homeserver.
Most inappropriate behavior is well-meaning or unintentional. Unless there's clear malice or multiple repeated offences, moderators will delete the offending messages and issue a warning explaining why your behavior was harmful, either with a brief message in chat or by pulling you aside for a DM.
Refusing to acknowledge a warning may escalate you to the next level of enforcement.
Examples of behavior that might warrent a warning:
- Allowing a conversation to devolve into an argument
- Posting heavy content without a content warning, or posting lewd content outside of #nsfw:the-apothecary.club
- A first time offense using a homophobic slur without malicous intent or contemptfully
In cases of repeated behavior, or where these rules are violated very shortly after joining, you might be temporarily kicked from the room, or prevented from sending messages. This is meant to serve to give you some time to cool down and perhaps review these policies. Typically, you will only be kicked/muted in a single room, and will be welcome to continue participating in other rooms, so long as you keep in mind these rules. In cases where you are muted, please continue to pay attention to the room, as a moderator may try to communicate with you.
After a few minutes, or when a moderator re-invites you to the community or unmutes you, you may rejoin the room. Rejoining immediately and continuing to disregard the rules may result in a ban.
Examples of behavior that might warrent a kick/mute:
- Continuing an argument after it has been called off by another user
- Personal attacks against another user
- Repeatedly failing to use content warnings/the appropriate channels despite warnings in a short time frame
In the most extreme of cases, and where other methods have failed to improve someone's behavior, they may be banned from participating in a room. As with a kick, you may continue to participate in other rooms, but be very mindful of your behavior. After a time, anywhere between a week to several months, you may ask moderators to lift the ban.
Examples of behavior that might warrent a room ban:
- Repeatedly disrespecting the rooms members or topic of discussion.
- Disrespecting, invalidating, or inciting a conflict in a vent channel.
- Accumulating several kicks for similar reasons
- Persistantly refusing to listen to moderators
In cases where there is clearly no way to improve behavior, or where there could be a risk to the safety of the other members of the community, moderators may issue a permanent ban from the community. This applies to all rooms, present and future, facilitated by our moderation bot, @mjolnir:alchemi.dev.
Examples of behavior that might warrent a global ban:
- Blatent bigotry
- Trolling
- Spam
- Use of malicious bots/being a malicous bot
Sometimes, moderators will place a ban on all users from a certain homeserver. This is done where a homeserver is demonstrably and by it's nature in violation of these guidelines, or where the homeserver is a single-user homeserver where the owner is banned and/or has used the homeserver malicously, such as by using it to create bots.
Homeserver bans are enforced by server ACLS applied in all rooms using Mjolnir.
In cases where a room becomes rowdy, but many members are involved, a whole room may be temporarily muted, or "frozen", for a few minutes. If this happens, do not try to continue the conversation in another room, or try to continue, add to, or revise the conversation after the room is unfrozen. A moderator will likely explain what happened, why that was wrong, and when the room will be unmuted. A room mute may or may not accompany other means of enforcement for individuals in the room.
Different clients support adding content warnings / spoilers in different ways. It's good to know how to use them in your client. As this feature is still in somewhat active development, this may change frequently, and in some cases not be available at all. Keep in mind that there's no essential way to add a content warning. Just make sure that people see your warning before they see the content, and only see the content if they choose too. Even if your client lacks all other features, you can do a content warning by just posting your content elsewhere, and providing a link to the content in the chat. Thankfully, many clients offer an easier way. Check for your client below!
To send a message with a content warning, use the command /html <span data-mx-spoiler="CW: Mentions of self harm">Put the hidden content here!</span>. This is a temporary measure until the spoiler feature is finalized in this client.
When using RiotX, content warnings can be sent using the /spoiler command. Keep in mind that this does not allow for sending a reason with your CW, so make sure you provide a message with a reason above or below your CW'd message
To send a spoiler in Fluffy Chat, use the syntax: ||CW: Self harm mentions|Hidden content here||. You can also use Discord-like syntax to send a CW, but make sure you also include why you're using the warning: CW: Mentions of self harm ||I'm hidden||
- Riot IOS
- Nheko
- Riot.im (Android)