Expectations, Guidelines, and Rules of Engagement

About The Radical Communicators Network (RadComms):

The Radical Communicators Network (RadComms) is a community in service of progressive and left-movement workers to build narrative power toward a world of liberation and freedom. This network incubates visionary narrative strategy, collaboratively developed projects, best practices for the field, and transnational connections. We also provide resources to a larger audience through our resource directory, special projects, and monthly peer-learning sessions.

Who can join RadComms?

This network connects left and progressive communications workers within social movements, coalitions, collectives, cooperatives, philanthropic organizations, communications agencies, and nonprofits. We welcome people across various movements, organizations, experience levels, geographies, languages, and political associations. We also welcome people within other movement disciplines, such as organizers, policy advocates, cultural workers, and others for whom narrative power is a function of your work.

Is RadComms the Right Network for you?

Our approach to social justice communications is grounded in a power-based framework, addressing the core imbalances of oppression, dehumanization, and social injustice. This challenges the foundational assumptions and legitimacy of these oppressive systems. We collaborate intentionally and principledly with one another and other movement workers to build narrative power for freedom and liberation. Our efforts focus on advancing communication frameworks that center the stories of impacted and oppressed communities. We actively question and respond to oppressive, dominant, hierarchical narratives and systems. We believe in and advocate for revolutionary social change and radical approaches to sustained social, cultural, and political transformation. Sharing resources, learnings, and experiences is key to advancing our collective work, so we are committed to democratizing information and access to resources like grants, trainings, and job opportunities.

How we center safety:

We deploy a rigorous vetting process to maintain our network’s safety, security, and integrity. We are constantly strengthening this process to combat the long and storied history of left and progressive spaces being co-opted and divided by oppositional forces, detractors, and those not values-aligned and because our network includes populations targeted by those forces. We have used the process to vet members for admission into the Network since 2016 for three reasons:

To keep our members safe from our opposition and detractors eager to co-opt our movement spaces or stir divisions within them.
To ensure our consideration of prospective members is equitable. Rather than assessing applicants exclusively on credentials, we seek members who approach the group with a strong sense of mutuality and a vision for what they want to give and receive.
To assess whether there is values-based alignment on the issues and how we engage with one another.

Expectations, Guidelines, and Rules of Engagement

These community guidelines exist to ensure a respectful RadComms Network experience. Click on the plus sign to read the full text of each rule.

Treat all members with respect. We won’t always agree on ideas and approaches, but by practicing principled struggle (see more in our Values), we can sharpen one another and our movements. Name-calling, personal attacks, harassment, or language that is racist, Islamophobic, anti-Black, homophobic, xenophobic, classist, fatphobic, misogynistic, transphobic, ableist, antisemitic, or otherwise hateful are grounds for expulsion.

We recognize the power of collaboration, as it allows us to do together what we cannot do separately. Intentional, principled collaboration requires a deliberate and thoughtful approach based on shared principles or values.

The RadComms ListServ was founded and designed to be a place for cross-movement discussion, narrative analysis, and community building, above all else.

Types of posts we encourage:

Questions about the political conditions, media landscape, communications strategies, best practices, and other relevant discussions for fellow social-justice communicators.
Offerings of toolkits, style guides, movement-specific insight, technology recommendations, and any other resources that might benefit the community.
Conversations around topics in the news, relevant articles or media worthy of deeper discussion, or any other invitations for collaboration and insight from the greater network.

Types of posts we discourage:

Explicit self-promotion of services or products unless specifically designated by a thread.
Personal questions unrelated to work, movement, or the RadComms community, such as roommate requests or subletting offers.
Promotion of any individual candidate for elected office. While RadComms is designed as a space for political discourse and alignment, it is not a space for lobbying.

Refrain from spamming the community with advertisements, unrelated content, or excessive self-promotion of yourself, your organizations, or your campaigns.

Respect the privacy of fellow members, and do not share personal information, stories, or anecdotes about others without consent. Our community strictly prohibits the practice of doxing, which involves sharing personal information about someone without their consent. This includes, but is not limited to, real names, addresses, phone numbers, or any other private details.

Do not intentionally provoke or troll other members publicly or privately. Constructive criticism is welcome, but do not engage in inflammatory behavior.

When sharing content, credit original creators. Do not plagiarize or claim someone else’s work as your own. We generally recognize the long lineage of social movements and encourage members to recognize and pay respects to the movement workers who came before us.

If posting potentially sensitive or triggering content, use appropriate content warnings or labels to allow members to make informed choices about their views. We encourage this in both the subject line and the body of the message using the following format:

Subject line: Content Warning - [Subject] // [General topic of post content]

Email body:

Content Warning - [Subject]

A series of vertical dots or any character to allow a gap between the warning and the actual message.

The main body of your message.

We encourage you to add value to discussion threads by sharing thoughtful information relevant to the topic at hand, rather than responding tangentially in a way that can derail the conversation. Disagreements, conflicts and “calling in” will inevitably happen on the ListServ. However, when conversation moves beyond constructive feedback and towards personal dispute with another member, we expect you to address it privately rather than in the public community.

Familiarize yourself with the specific guidelines of the network to engage in collective accountability and care. You can return to this page for clarity on expectations and procedures.

Use the designated Jobs Thread for full-time or long-term contract roles and the RFP/Short-Term Contract thread for corresponding roles. New threads are created every two months to keep listings relevant and threads neat.
Do not post any jobs as an individual thread. All jobs posted outside the jobs thread will be deleted.
Compensation information must be included on all job AND short-term contract postings. If there is a salary range or flexible project budget, please include that information.
All job listings should be relevant to social movements and communications.
Specify if members can contact you with questions or if you are just the messenger.

RadComms seeks to build narrative power without sacrificing principles or values for strategy. We ask that you evaluate the mission and values of any jobs you post to ensure they are aligned with those of the network. Here are some questions to consider:

Does this role/organization center those closest to solutions and prioritize the voices of historically excluded communities?
Does this role/organization engage in transformative storytelling work rather than marketing strategies that benefit those in power (ex. greenwashing?)
Does this role/organization grow and develop the field of social justice communicators working towards liberation?

Violations of Community Guidelines Operation Procedure

To maintain a welcoming and just environment, we respond promptly if a member breaches our guidelines. We will refer to these guidelines at the first instance of harmful behavior towards another member. Repeated harmful actions and/or egregious failure to adhere to the Rules of Engagement will lead to removal from the group.

Reporting a Breach of Guidelines

For any feedback, questions, or concerns, please email hello@radcommsnetwork.org. If you believe someone has breached our guidelines for any reason, report it immediately. Please include specific details about the violation of the guideline and the individual involved, and forward the relevant post. We will review your report and take any necessary actions.

Community Guidelines Violation Operating Procedure

This procedure is designed to ensure a fair, transparent, and consistent approach to handling violations of community guidelines. Click on the plus sign to read the full text of each rule.

When a community member is suspected of violating the guidelines, the issue is first identified through monitoring or reports from other members.

The reported violation is assessed to determine its nature and severity. This step involves reviewing the relevant content and context.

The individual alleged to have violated the guidelines is contacted to discuss the issue. This communication aims to clarify the situation and provide an opportunity for explanation or defense.

Based on the assessment and communication, a decision is made regarding the violation. This could range from a warning to temporary suspension or permanent removal from the community, depending on the severity of the violation.

The decided-upon consequences are then implemented. This may involve notifying the individual of a warning, temporarily restricting their access, or removing them from the community.

All incidents and actions taken are documented for record-keeping. This documentation helps in maintaining consistency in handling similar cases in the future.

Feedback is provided to the reporting party, and the issue is considered resolved unless further incidents occur.

Depending on the nature of the violation and the community’s policies, other members may be notified about the incident and the actions taken to maintain transparency and uphold community standards.

In our community, we recognize that we are all part of the very systems we aim to dismantle and have been shaped by the same societal influences. This means we are just as likely as anyone else to unintentionally harm those we strive to protect. We must be aware of this and hold each other accountable, constantly deepening our understanding of minor and significant differences.