Code of Conduct & Event Conditions of Entry

By attending an event run by International Game Developers Association (Melbourne) Incorporated (“IGDA Melbourne”), you agree to the conditions of entry outlined below.

Code of Conduct

IGDA Melbourne is dedicated to providing a harassment-free experience for everyone. We do not tolerate harassment in any form.

This code of conduct applies to all IGDA Melbourne spaces both online and off, including our social media pages and email correspondence. Anyone who violates this code of conduct may be sanctioned or expelled from these spaces at the discretion of the Safety Team.

Some IGDA Melbourne events may have additional rules in place, which will be made clearly available to attendees. Attendees are responsible for knowing and abiding by these rules.

Safety Team Contact Information

Email: safety@igdamelbourne.au

Unacceptable Behaviour

Unacceptable behaviours include:

  • Offensive comments related to gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, mental illness, neuro(a)typicality, physical appearance, body size, age, race, or religion

  • Unwelcome comments regarding a person’s lifestyle choices and practices, including those related to food, health, parenting, drugs, and employment

  • Deliberate misgendering or use of ‘dead’ or rejected names

  • Gratuitous or off-topic sexual images or behaviour in spaces where they’re not appropriate

  • Physical contact and simulated physical contact (eg, textual descriptions like “hug” or “backrub”) without consent or after a request to stop

  • Threats of violence

  • Incitement of violence towards any individual, including encouraging a person to commit suicide or to engage in self-harm

  • Deliberate intimidation

  • Stalking or following

  • Harassing photography or recording, including logging online activity for harassment purposes

  • Sustained disruption of discussion

  • Unwelcome sexual attention

  • Pattern of inappropriate social contact, such as requesting/assuming inappropriate levels of intimacy with others

  • Continued one-on-one communication after requests to cease

  • Deliberate “outing” of any aspect of a person’s identity without their consent except as necessary to protect vulnerable people from intentional abuse

  • Publication of non-harassing private communication

IGDA Melbourne prioritises marginalised people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort. The Safety Team reserves the right not to act on complaints regarding:

  • “Reverse” -isms, including “reverse racism”, “reverse sexism”, and “cisphobia”

  • Reasonable communication of boundaries, such as “leave me alone”, “go away”, or “I’m not discussing this with you.”

  • Communicating in a ‘tone’ you don’t find congenial

  • Criticising racist, sexist, cissexist, or otherwise oppressive behaviour or assumptions

Reporting Unacceptable Behaviour

If you are subject to or witness unacceptable behavior, or have any other concerns, please contact the Safety Team at safety@igdamelbourne.au. If the person who is harassing you is on the team, they will recuse themselves from handling your incident. We will respond as promptly as we can.

This code of conduct applies to IGDA Melbourne spaces, but if you are being harassed by someone who has attended of an IGDA Melbourne event outside our spaces, we still want to know about it. We will take all good-faith reports of harassment by community members, especially the IGDA Melbourne committee, seriously. This includes harassment outside our spaces and harassment that took place at any point in time. The abuse team reserves the right to exclude people from IGDA Melbourne events based on their past behaviour, including behaviour outside IGDA Melbourne events and behaviour towards people who have not attended IGDA Melbourne events.

In order to protect volunteers from abuse and burnout, we reserve the right to reject any report we believe to have been made in bad faith. Reports intended to silence legitimate criticism may be deleted without response.

We will respect confidentiality requests for the purpose of protecting victims of abuse. At our discretion, we may publicly name a person about whom we’ve received harassment complaints, or privately warn third parties about them, if we believe that doing so will increase the safety of attendees or the general public. We will not name harassment victims without their affirmative consent.

Consequences of Unacceptable Behaviour

Anyone asked to stop unacceptable behavior is expected to comply immediately.

If an attendee engages in unacceptable behavior, the Safety Team may take action to stop the unacceptable behavior, up to and including a temporary ban or permanent expulsion from IGDA Melbourne events without warning and without refund. IGDA Melbourne reserves the right to identify the participant as a harasser to other IGDA Melbourne event attendees or the general public.

Attribution

This code of conduct is based on the Technically Games Code of Conduct, which is in turn based on the example policy from Geek Feminism wiki (https://geekfeminism.wikia.org/wiki/Community_anti-harassment), created by the Geek Feminism community, and the Code of Conduct used by previous Melbourne Global Game Jam events.

Indemnification

By attending an IGDA Melbourne event you release and indemnify IGDA Melbourne (and their employees, contractors, officers and agents) from and against any claim or liability of any nature in relation to damage, injury or death, from you or any third party regardless of how the damage, injury or death is sustained or caused (including when caused by the negligence or gross negligence of IGDA Melbourne or their employees, contractors, officers and agents).

By attending an IGDA Melbourne event you also acknowledge that any property you bring to The Venue you do so at your own risk and you release and indemnify IGDA Melbourne (and their employees, contractors, officers and agents) from and against any claim or liability in relation to the loss of or damage to such property regardless of how the loss of or damage to such property is sustained or caused (including when caused by the negligence or gross negligence of IGDA Melbourne or their employees, contractors, officers and agents).

Photo ID Required

Unless otherwise specified, attendees of IGDA Melbourne events must be over 18 years of age and must show valid Photo ID at entrance to the event bearing the same name as their ticket. Security, venue staff and events staff have the right to ask you for additional verification of identity on request.

Photography Release

By attending an IGDA Melbourne event, you agree that IGDA Melbourne and sponsors of the event have permission to photograph you at the event and use those photos and videos in promotional material, including promoting future events and services. You agree that you will not be entitled to any compensation or credit for your presence in photos or videos.

Email Subscription

By attending an IGDA Melbourne event, you grant us permission to add your email address to one of our mailing lists – either the main IGDA Melbourne mailing list or the Megadev mailing list – depending on what event you attend. You can always unsubscribe from the mailing list using the unsubscribe link in the email that was sent to you. If you’re on both mailing lists, you might receive duplicate emails around Games Week.

Code of Conduct & Event Conditions of Entry - IGDA Melbourne