NEUROMANCERS COMMUNICATION GUIDELINES
This page and its contents are about how we at NEUROMANCERS aim to communicate with each other — particularly in groups. Please see our accessibility page for information about financial accessibility, our ‘Support Survivors’ policy and more. Please contact us with any edits or suggestions! (From ‘Food Not Bombs’ and edited to NEUROMANCERS standards.)
1. Please keep your terminology simple so that it can be understood easily by everyone. This might include, for example, specific theoretical ideas, or reference to thinkers/advocates whom others will not necessarily be familiar with.
2. Please don’t assume that everyone will have shared norms and conventions. We all have different ways of doing things across different advocacy, work and community spaces, and people will also have different cultural and generational norms as well as distinct levels of experience and expertise when it comes to neurodiversity.
3. Please don’t make assumptions about people themselves. People will have diverse genders, sexualities, relationship styles, nationalities, ages, disabilities, religions and cultural backgrounds.
4. Please treat others with respect when they are communicating. It can be very daunting for some neurodivergents to communicate to/in a group, especially about their own ideas. Do not police, accent, language, pronunciation or spelling — this is ableist. If you don’t understand something, ask respectfully for clarification.
5. Please try to frame questions and discussion points in a way that leaves room for other people to contribute. It’s easy for discussions to become dominated by certain individuals or views. Please try to keep your contributions brief enough that everybody present has the possibility of taking part. Remember that some people need a period of silence to consider what to say before contributing or might want time for processing information so don’t rush to fill the silence.
6. Please try to frame questions and discussion points in a way which leaves it open for other people to disagree with you. There may be people present with different views, religious backgrounds, theoretical approaches and opinions about what political strategies are most effective. Please consider whether your contribution leaves space for other people to express different points of view to your own. It’s fine to disagree but please keep criticism constructive and to your own perspective: ‘I think….’ Rather than ‘you’re wrong’.
7. Please check-in with others if the material you are sharing has the potential to by upsetting. ALWAYS use content warnings if there is going to be any mention of sexual abuse, violence, mental health problems, traumatic experiences or racist, sexist, homophobic or otherwise derogatory sentiments.
8. Keep what people share confidential after meetings/discussions/chats If people discuss personal experiences, remember not to discuss these outside of the meeting/discussion/chat.
9. Discrimination of any kind is unacceptable and will be challenged. More information about this can be found on our accessibility page.
10. Whilst ground rules are collective responsibility, everyone is also personally responsible for their own behaviour.