Welcome to the Kazamatsuri community!

We’re glad to hear you’re interested in joining us! We are a community united not only through our shared love of Key stories, but also through shared values, working to promote each other’s comfort and well-being; just like a real group of friends. But it’s not something any one person can do alone, it’s something we must all work towards by supporting each other in creating the kind of community we all want to be part of. However; Kazamatsuri cannot be everything for everyone. All we can do is create the kind of community we want to be part of, in the hopes that others who share our values will join in too. So please carefully read over this code, consider the values we promote, and think about whether Kazamatsuri is the kind of place you could see yourself calling home. With that said, here are the core values of our community; the goals we’ll be working together to realise.

Mission 1: Be Empathetic

Just as Key’s stories teach the importance of empathy, so too must Kazamatsuri’s members always endeavour to be empathetic of one another. Behind every avatar is a person deserving of empathy, and so we must always strive to:

Understand and respect the feelings of others, whether we agree or not.
Be mindful of the language we use & content we post and how it may affect others, irrespective of our intent.
Remain attentive and sensitive to cultural differences and social issues.
Avoid spoiling stories for others.
Let someone know if we feel hurt, excluded or made uncomfortable on Kazamatsuri.

It’s everyone’s job to help each other. And if you do happen to brush up against someone’s sensitivities, as long as you’re willing to adjust and make an effort to do the right thing by others, everyone will be happy. It’s not about being spotless, it’s about having your heart in the right place and being empathetic to your fellow members.

Mission 2: Strive for Quality

At Kazamatsuri, we ought to be able to take pride in what we’ve done here. Not to assert superiority over anyone else, but because we want do our best, and to make people’s experience of Kazamatsuri as enjoyable, exciting and fulfilling as possible! So many corners of the internet are full of spam and low-effort content, but we want Kazamatsuri to shine. Together we must always strive to:

Never settle for the absolute minimum, and always strive for greatness; in our projects and our conduct.
Ensure that all information and outside content is properly cited.
Keep the forum and Discord organised and easy to use.
Create events that are enjoyable for everyone and don’t happen at anybody’s expense.
Produce awesome collaborative work together.
Make clear, concise and insightful discussion posts that contribute to the conversation.
Understand that both a lengthy eloquent essay and a short and concise rant full of expletives can both be high quality, as long as they are insightful and concise! Use discussion as a means of expressing yourself and your view of the world, and as a means of interacting with the worlds of others.

Remember, it isn’t about asserting superiority, as that would be unempathetic; it’s about trying your hardest!

Mission 3: Have Fun!

It may sound strange to have this as one of our primary tenets, but we must always remember to have fun in what we do. If it’s not fun, what’s the point? We come to Kazamatsuri because we want to have fun, we want to enjoy ourselves with like-minded people! So whenever things get serious, and whenever drama strikes, we must always remember why we’re doing this in the first place. The goal must always be to have fun with each other, so long as it’s not at another’s expense, or that doing so compromises the quality of the Kazamatsuri experience. Perhaps you could say, we should treat everything as a mission!

These three Missions, or Values, form the foundation of the Kazamatsuri community. They are goals we all agree upon as members choosing to engage in the community. From now until the day Kazamatsuri closes, we must all continue to negotiate with each other how to best accomplish these goals. That means that if you ever feel like these Missions are not being satisfied, it’s your role to speak up about your misgivings and offer suggestions of how the community can better achieve these Missions. The moderators and admins will work to serve as role models for the community, but they are to be held as accountable to these Missions as any other member. We all need to work together to ensure these Missions are achieved!

Regarding the Moderation Process:

The path to achieving these missions will require ongoing discussion, and will likely change over time, but that’s how this community should work. It’s not about those in power forcing everyone else to follow a set of rules, it’s about everyone who’s participating (who already share our goals) negotiating with each other on how we can best achieve these goals as a community. This is how moderation will be conducted too, by entering in discussion with members who may be infringing on our Missions on how we can best cooperate to ensure our Missions are met.

Only if members are wholly uncooperative and don’t share our vision will moderators use their power forcefully; it’s something we want to avoid as much as possible. We don’t plan to punish anybody for making honest mistakes. If you post a spoiler or make someone uncomfortable, we will chat with you to ensure you understand the issue, and work with you to resolve it and prevent it from happening again. Specifically for the Discord, if a chaotic situation arises that requires immediate attention to contain, the mods or chanops may delete the offending material and apply a ‘timeout’ to the offending parties, so that the moderators can coordinate themselves and enter into negotiations at the right time. Time zones are hard, guys! And once more, if you notice there’s something bothering you, tell someone! We’re here to help each other.

When things do go awry, our mods will be keeping detailed records of any transgressions or sanctions in a hidden forum category for archival purposes, and we’ll usually be happy to share relevant excerpts when requested in the interests of transparency. When mods are required to speak not as a fellow member but forcefully as a mod, we will use mod colors (paints the post a color to highlight it), but we hope to keep this to an absolute minimum. On the forum you can tell someone is a moderator by the shield next to their name, and on the Discord they’ll have a role and color.

Communication is Key

In order to best accomplish these missions, we need open and honest communication among and between members and staff. If you have an idea for Kazamatsuri that will affect everyone, say an event of some kind, talk to the community and staff first before going ahead with it. We must never assume we know what’s best for Kazamatsuri; that’s something that no one person can determine alone, not even the admins. What’s best for Kazamatsuri, or how we can best achieve these Missions, is something we must work together to discover. In short, whenever there’s a concern or conflict or some idea that may affect everyone in the community, we must always strive for open and honest communication and work to reach solutions as a group. It’s only empathetic!

“So what are the rules?”

Since this is a cooperative system for an auto-moderating community, we are keeping hard rules to a minimum. A mod system built only on rules feels too oppressive, and will inevitably have its loopholes exploited by people who don’t care for ‘why’ the rules were created, and only ‘what’ the rules are, like mines to avoid tripping. By making this about cooperation and shared goals, we can overcome this. It treats people like adults, with trust and honesty, instead of suspicion, as though we’re waiting for people to trip up before taking action.

To supplement the Missions and to provide a clearer image of them, we have prepared this list of discouraged behaviours. These discouraged behaviours vary in severity, from things that are almost never okay, to things that may be perfectly acceptable in certain circumstances. Unlike our Missions, this list represents a consensus of the community, and as such will need to be evaluated and updated continuously over time, in response to discussion in the community. We invite all of you to offer your own input into what behaviours ought to be discouraged in order to ensure our Missions are being achieved. Again, you won’t necessarily be banned for doing any of these; we’ll call on you to make sure you understand the situation and we’ll then discuss a resolution together with you. Mod action will only be taken if someone is willfully uncooperative in achieving our Missions. A willingness to adapt and participate will be well rewarded on Kazamatsuri.

Meet the Admins!

I’m @Aspirety, the founder and director of Kazamatsuri. I have a hand in pretty much everything Kazamatsuri, so you’re bound to see me a lot! Feel free to me if you ever have any questions or concerns, or if you just wanna say hi! If you want to get to know me off the site, you can find me here on Twitter.

@technololigy is the co-founder and webmaster (server mum) of Kazamatsuri, and all around good girl. She built Kazamatsuri through my vague instructions and continues to keep things running behind the scenes, so without her, none of this would exist. She handles most of the technical side of running our site, so if there’s any technical questions I’m unable to answer, she’s the one to talk to. Don’t be afraid to talk to her about mod stuff either though, she’s as much a part of this community as anyone else!

@Pepe is our third administrator and my trusted friend. He oversees the same duties of community management as I do, so you’re bound to see him everywhere. He’s also a super nice guy and happy to help out with any questions a user might have.

With all that said, do you think Kazamatsuri is a place you could call home? By choosing to participate in our community, you do so understanding our Missions and accepting them. If so, be sure to check out our Tips for New Members, and Introduce Yourself to our community! Be sure to message any of friendly staff if you have any questons.

We look forward to making many good memories with all of you.