Code of Conduct

Retrievercon is dedicated to providing a friendly, safe and welcoming environment for everyone, regardless of gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, race, class, or identity. We invite all those who participate in Retrievercon to help us create safe and positive experiences for everyone.

All attendees and participants of Retrievercon (regardless of whether they are currently students or not) are bound by UMBC’s Code of Student Conduct and Policy on Sexual Misconduct, Sexual Harassment and Gender Discrimination. The Retrievercon Code of Conduct is in alignment with and often overlaps with these policies; it additionally sets more specific guidelines on conduct and procedure for Retrievercon. Convention participants violating these rules may be sanctioned or expelled from the conference at the discretion of the convention organizers. 

Harassment of any kind will not be tolerated at Retrievercon. This policy applies to all attendees, guests, volunteers, security, and staff.

Harassment

Harassment is generally defined as unwanted behavior that creates an intimidating, offensive, and/or hostile environment for the person being targeted. It can be physical or psychological. If someone tells you that your comments or behavior are unwelcome, you need to stop immediately. If that person tells you to leave them alone, you need to cease contact. It doesn't matter if you don't think your behavior was harassing; harassment is defined by the victim.

Examples of harassment include, but are not limited to:

• Making comments about a person's appearance, sexual and/or vulgar statements, offensive jokes, or anything disparaging a person's gender, race, religion, sexuality, identity, et cetera.

• Bullying and discrimination.

• Whistling, catcalling, and any kind of non-consensual flirting or sexual advances.

• Following someone or impeding their path.

• Attending a person's panels solely to heckle them.

• Photographing or recording someone without their permission.

• Exposing oneself or miming sexual acts.

• Bathroom policing (harassing someone because of the bathroom they feel most comfortable using).

• Touching someone without their permission.

• Repeated texting, phone calls, or emails, after being told to stop.

• Any persistent action that creates a hostile environment for the person or persons being targeted - harassment is when a person is feeling harassed, period.

• If a person is in cosplay, that does not give you consent to photograph or touch them without their permission. Remember that underneath the costume and make-up is a real person; they are not the character they are portraying and you do not have the right to treat them as you would the fictional character.

Excessively loud noises/music and disruptive behavior is prohibited unless noted otherwise. Please refrain from screaming, blasting music, or using noisemakers such as vuvuzelas and air horns, especially in hallways.

Dress Code

Costumes must cover any area usually hidden by a bathing suit (genitalia, buttocks, nipples unless otherwise specified). Flashing/mooning other people is considered harassment and will not be tolerated.

Reporting

We take all reports very seriously, regardless of who is involved. You can report harassment even if you are not directly involved, and no retaliation for filing a report will be tolerated.

Harassment by any individual (attendees, guests, volunteers, security, or staff) should be reported to the one of the executive board of the UMBC Anime Society (identified by their “Organizer”  badges). If you need to find an executive board member, you can ask one of the volunteer staff members, and they can flag down one of the executive board members.

Retrievercon executive board members and volunteer staff (who are not employed by the university in other capacities) are not required by UMBC to report incidents of sexual harassment or misconduct to UMBC’s Office of Equity and Inclusion; however, UMBC employees, including Commons staff and event security, are under this obligation. You are free to report incidents to the latter group of people, but be aware of their obligations to pass on the report to the University. If you report an incident to non-employee Retrievercon staff and would like this incident to be passed on to the Office of Equity and Inclusion (this can be anonymous or non-anonymous), please let us know.

Consequences

Any violations of our harassment policy will result in immediate penalties dependent upon the severity of the action. Such penalties include:

• Verbal warnings. (You will only be warned once.)

• Ejection from the event.

• Banning from any and all future events put on by UMBC Anime Society.

• Contacting law enforcement when appropriate.

Attribution 

Portions of this code of conduct were derived from policies by the Cosplayer Survivor Support Network, the Stumptown Syndicate, and the Ada Initiative.