Community Values and Code of Conduct:

TheLi.st is a community with a powerful network effect.

Our mission is to make big things happen—for you, for our community, and for the world. We are a group of high impact leaders who are devoted to helping each other achieve and succeed—in all areas of our lives. Our individual wins can collectively create a new dynamic of power—one that is diverse, transparent, and collaborative. TheLi.st is sustained by each members' commitment to growth, openness, curiosity, and participation in our community values.

We encourage you to read this resources document which is an overview of helpful articles and educational resources to help us all get on the same page about how we can be inclusive, anti-racist, and intentional in our interactions so we can strengthen our connections with each other.

As members of TheLi.st, the following behaviors are also expected from each of you and is the code of conduct on how we will engage with one another:

 

Be generous and collaborative

We help each other succeed—in all areas of our lives—by actively supporting each other and being supported in return. We encourage Li.sters to be generous with their counsel, connections and insight in the ways that best suit their experiences and boundaries. For every request you make to the community, think of one or more ways you can give back, whether that’s answering someone’s question, cheering on someone’s accomplishment, offering a resource, making an introduction, sharing information, or meeting a fellow Li.ster in person. These actions create the collaborative, new power for us to all succeed.

Common ways we engage with each other on TheLi.st: 

  • Requests (business or personal): If you need guidance, amplification, or insight, whether on a personal issue or a professional goal, sending an ask to TheLi.st email group is a great way to engage the community. 

  • Offers (business or personal): Please offer to make introductions and connections, share useful resources and information, events, opportunities to gather in person, or job posts, and offer what you can with healthy boundaries on your time and energy. 

  • Discussions: Starting a thread on a topic of interest and asking for direct and clear opinions and insight is a great way to engage other Li.sters.

  • Accomplishments and lessons learned: Share your milestones and achievements with us! We want to celebrate and cheer you on, whether personal or professional. 

  • Meet ups: We encourage individuals and small groups of Li.sters to connect with each other for informal meet ups, coffees, meals and networking. Please note, these are not considered official TheLi.st events (therefore TheLi.st Code of Conduct and Terms of Service do not apply) unless they are organized by a member of TheLi.st management or a member is given express permission to convene an official event. 

In addition, while responsiveness to direct emails is helpful for building community within TheLi.st, you are not required to respond to every comment in a thread that you start. But if a Li.ster emails you directly with an ask or offer, we’d appreciate it if you’d reply, even to say it’s not the right time or you can’t help.

Be conscious and intentional

We often have vulnerable conversations on personal and social issues—and this is part of what makes TheLi.st such a special place. Because each of us hold various levels of understanding about the complex economic, social, and political systems we live in, and the various ways those systems impact us differently, we encourage members to be thoughtful about the impact of the words we use and ideas we share while engaging each other in sensitive topics. 

We recommend approaching sensitive conversations with the following behaviors for more informed and intentional discussions:

  • We encourage continuous learning outside of TheLi.st conversations. Every person, of every background and identity, can benefit from continued learning about various biases and privileges, and identities we all can hold. This will help to create better spaces for conversation, as the more information you are aware of when it comes to bias and privileges (which includes body privilege, class privilege, white privilege, colorism, gender privilege, and more), the more you can approach sensitive topics with courage, nuance, and care. A great first step is reflecting on what privileges and identity intersectionality you may have that can shape how you engage in conversations related to various aspects of identity. Our DEI resources document has great information for understanding what intersectionality and privileges are. 

  • Focus on the behavior and impact of the behavior in a conversation when disagreeing with someone’s point of view, and not labeling or name calling the person you’re engaging with. 

  • Take a pause and reflect on your behavior and ask non-defensive, open questions, if someone points out a microaggression in a conversation.  Approach the conversation with curiosity and an open mind for learning and improving how we engage in conversations with each other. 

  • Give grace to one another, as we are each bound to at times to get things wrong and say something we regret. Please post with respect and take accountability if you are called in by a fellow member or moderator on a behavior that was, even unintentionally, harmful. The goal here in the community is the ability to speak truths to one another about inequalities around us without defensiveness. Addressing conflict with the goal of accepting accountability and not repeating harmful behaviors can deepen trust and understanding between one another.

  • Speak directly with one another. Take a moment to reflect on what should be a direct 1:1 conversation with a member of TheLi.st vs. what posts or comments should involve the entire TheLi.st community. If experiencing an issue or conflict that needs to be resolved with a member, we encourage reaching out directly to that member offline. Direct and compassionate conversation with one another when there's an issue creates resolution and trust when miscommunications occur. 

Be inclusive 

We are a community that centers the experiences of women and all genders who have been marginalized by systems of prejudice and sexism. We strive to create a brave space – a place of transparency, honesty, openness, and accountability – for everyone of all identities to participate, introduce new ideas, and support and inspire others regardless of background, family status, gender identity or expression, marital status, sexual orientation, native language, age, ability, race and or ethnicity, caste, national origin, socioeconomic status, religion, geographic location, and any other dimension of identity. 

Some of the ways we show inclusivity in action: 

  • Avoiding communicating in generalizations or stereotypes (for example, not assuming all individuals on TheLi.st are cis-gendered women, when there are various gender identities on TheLi.st).

  • Learning more about identities we may not hold.

Abuses of power (including leveraging position, wealth, or other privileges to harm someone intentionally), ableism, homophobia, transphobia, racism, sexism, anti-semitism, islamophobia, ageism, body shaming or talk or behavior that discriminates against a group or class of people, sexual harassment of any kind, including unwelcome sexual attention and inappropriate physical contact, being disruptive, combative, stalking, or threatening anyone, will not be tolerated. 


Be anti-racist 

We are committed to creating an actively anti-racist community, and do so with the following individual member actions:

  • Awareness: Li.sters commit to improving their cultural competency and understanding of racism, (We recommend reviewing the following reading resources, particularly the key terms in that resources document).

  • Accountability: Li.sters commit to checking their assumptions, examining their privileges and how they may show up in their lives and work, and recognizing and naming white supremacy and racism when it's present in business decisions, national and local news events, and conversations.

  • Action: Li.sters commit to taking consistent and repeated actions that counter racism by also practicing compassionate empathy and taking actions like diversifying who you amplify and support on TheLi.st speaking up when someone has been harmed, evaluating your requests and comments on TheLi.st and how they may, even unknowingly, perpetuate racism and white supremacy, and acknowledging and affirming the feelings and concerns of individuals who name or identify experiences of racism.

Protect confidentiality 

TheLi.st is a unique place of candor and vulnerability that’s created through confidentiality. Communication, content, and contact information on TheLi.st, TheLi.st hosted online forums, at TheLi.st HQ, and at TheLi.st events (virtual and in real life) is strictly confidential, off the record, and not to be shared beyond TheLi.st unless expressly given permission by the author. 

The following behaviors are not permitted:

  • Invasion of privacy, including taking screenshots of conversations, forwarding or CCing conversations to anyone outside of TheLi.st

  • Posting personal details about someone else without their permission

  • Scraping of TheLi.st, (virtual and in real life), The Li.st HQ or TheLi.st member emails to outside email lists or communities, is prohibited

  • Starting TheLi.st adjacent threads or clubs for any purpose, or use TheLi.st brand in any manner, without express written consent from TheLi.st/New Power Media

  • Sharing recruitment links, offers, or other invitations to join competitive professional women’s communities without first getting express written permission from TheLi.st/New Power Media

Best Practices For Posting

TTheLi.st email is open for posts M-F 9am-9pm ET. Posts sent outside that timeframe will be in a queue until the next day.

Introduce Yourself. When you first join TheLi.st, send a short email about who you are, what you do, a request of what you are currently desiring support or help with in your personal or professional life, and the ways you might be helpful in return to the community. 

Be mindful when posting about sensitive, triggering topics. If introducing a difficult topic within the community [e.g. violence, sexual assault, self-harm, eating disorders, loss of life, etc.], please frame the conversation with respect for others’ lived experiences and introduce the topic with a content warning [cw] [content warning] or trigger warning [tw] [trigger warning in the subject line and body of the email.

Give space. If you find yourself dominating a discussion, please consider pausing and encouraging other voices to join in. Be mindful of how much time is taken up by more vocal members of the thread, and do engage on threads that may be lacking in public responses. 

Post to the community by default. It is okay to occasionally reply privately to an author about their post or to reach out to someone on TheLi.st HQ with a direct query, but if you are sharing information that we could all learn from, we encourage you to reply all on email threads so the community can also benefit from your ideas and point of view.  

Be mindful of over self-promotion. We want to hear about your business and want to help you succeed, but TheLi.st should not be used for aggressive marketing, promotion, or raising money. Also reaching out to members privately through TheLi.st HQ Member Directory or through TheListers Google Group to expressly promote your business is prohibited. You may post your event or opportunity to TheLi.st HQ where it can continue to gather attention.

When posting job opportunities, please include salary, benefits and/or hourly rates, where available. It supports transparency and equality to include these details.

To make your posts more discoverable, please use the following keywords in your subject line when appropriate:  intro, invite, amplify, jobs, event.


Moderation On TheLi.st

 

TheLi.st moderators' goals are to redirect and share resources for conversations when individuals aren’t following the code of conduct effectively, or delivering consequences if the code of conduct is violated. TheLi.st may pause or block members ability to post directly to TheLi.st  as part of the moderation process. Moderators are not on call, but they review threads multiple times per day. If a Li.ster is in violation of this code of conduct and/or expresses microaggressions in the TheLi.st hosted threads or events that relate to gender, race, religion, class, ability or other identities (this includes tone policing, ableism in language, gendered language, classism in how job opportunities are shared, etc.) they will receive a private message on how to best correct the behavior and resources to learn further and not repeat the behavior in the future. If a person violates the code of conduct two or more times, or perpetuates a very destructive and harmful behavior with one violation, their membership will be paused or permanently suspended. If you see a thread that is in violation of the code of conduct please email moderator@theli.st to review and provide moderation support for the thread. 

 

Enjoy!

For more than a decade thousands of leaders have come to TheLi.st with their ambitions, passions, relationships, parenting or choosing not to parent questions, fashion choices, wellness tips, traveling insights, education advice and so much more. We hope you will continue in that spirit and enjoy it, grow from it, make new friends and overall find a supportive and meaningful community in your life.

We’re creating new power, together.

updated 1/1/2023