write community guidelines

[chadwhitacre]

Reticketed from #66.

Over on https://github.com/gittip/www.gittip.com/issues/1425 we're talking about guidelines for content published by users on Gittip. We also need guidelines for participation in the Gittip community as a discussant/collaborator, so I'm ticketing that as a separate issue here.

Open-source Codes of Conduct are the starting-point:

• https://us.pycon.org/2013/about/code-of-conduct/
• http://citizencodeofconduct.org/
• https://www.djangoproject.com/conduct/
• https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/wiki/Note-development-policy
• https://adainitiative.org/2014/02/howto-design-a-code-of-conduct-for-your-community/
• http://speakup.io/coc.html
• http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Code_of_conduct

[chadwhitacre]

See #66 for conversation to date, but new discussion should happen over here.

[chadwhitacre]

tl;dr We now have:

• http://building.gittip.com/howto/behave-well
• http://building.gittip.com/howto/handle-conflict http://building.gittip.com/howto/deal-with-bad-behavior

The second in particular needs to be improved.

[chadwhitacre]

Great article from Ada Initiative last week re: dealing with code of conduct violations:

"Handling harassment incidents swiftly and safely" https://adainitiative.org/2014/07/handling-harassment-incidents-swiftly-and-safely/

[chadwhitacre]

Follow-ons from that:

http://geekfeminism.org/2014/07/10/how-will-our-code-of-conduct-improve-our-harassment-handling/ http://blogs.publishersweekly.com/blogs/genreville/?p=2160 http://antarcticlust.dreamwidth.org/257808.html?thread=4140560#cmt4140560 http://whatever.scalzi.com/2014/07/28/what-happened-after-i-reported-elise-matthesen-wiscon-and-harassment/

[chadwhitacre]

See also:

"The Insidious Power of Not-Quite-Harassment" https://medium.com/@hannahjwaters/the-insidious-power-of-not-quite-harassment-857e2f71059a

Sexual harassment often goes unreported because of fear: fear of retribution, fear of losing friends, fear of professional backlash, fear that no one will believe you. When someone we know is accused, it’s far easier to defend them out of disbelief that they “could ever do something like that” than to believe the claims of a stranger. Yet we say to ourselves that if we were victimized, or if we saw someone else who was, we would be the ones to speak out. We would stand up, be bold, demand respect and take down the world’s harassers one by one.

But then it happens to you. And you don’t know what to do.

[chadwhitacre]

My current thinking is that we should adopt Ada Initiative templates for a) Code of Conduct and b) Incident Response, and then think about additional, optional layers beyond that. Because, yes: we should explicitly prioritize a safe environment over, for example, the wholesale sharing of information.

[chadwhitacre]

Interpersonal encounter—especially despite great differences—is a central value and goal for me. Openness to each other.

Safety is a prerequisite for genuine interpersonal encounter.

[chadwhitacre]

Picking up from #76 ...

I feel a space can be made safe for every person, but not for every idea.

(That's @duckinator in "On Open Companies, Consent, and Safety (among other things).")

Hmm ... I would be more inclined to say "but not for every behavior," because focusing on behavior "takes the conflict out of the realm of values and concepts — 'is it okay to hug people without consent?' — and into the realm of facts — 'is this person hugging people without consent?'" (src). In general I'm reluctant to rule out ideas a priori, though the manner in which ideas are delivered would be a form of behavior, and I think we want to be clear about what tone is appropriate in Gittip spaces.

Can you give some examples of ideas that you would see as being on Gittip's "unofficial list" of banned ideas, @duckinator?

[chadwhitacre]

and then think about additional, optional layers beyond that

Here I'm thinking of double opt-in processes for open handling of both condemnation (delivering results of an incident investigation to the wrongdoer) and reconciliation (facilitating a process of apology, forgiveness, and reparation between wronged and wrongdoer).

I do also want to think through "Some Thoughts on Handling Harassment and Toxic Behavior Privately." How does that relate here?

[chadwhitacre]

See what you think of that revision, eh @duckinator @pjf et al.?

[chadwhitacre]

http://building.gittip.com/howto/deal-with-bad-behavior

[chadwhitacre]

More relevant posts, women's stories about a predatory man in the science writing community:

quoted above: https://medium.com/@hannahjwaters/the-insidious-power-of-not-quite-harassment-857e2f71059a http://monicacatherine.wordpress.com/2012/10/09/this-happened/ https://medium.com/@nerdychristie/scar-tissue-873515a58835 https://medium.com/@sci2mrow/mixed-up-acb05b9675b9 https://medium.com/@sci2mrow/two-stories-3e809dfadd77

[chadwhitacre]

Also: "Four ways to avoid becoming a leading sex pest"

[chadwhitacre]

Also: "Ride like a girl: Cycling is awfully similar to being a woman"

[chadwhitacre]

I'd like to change the "conflict team" to the "safety team" and use safety@gittip.com

[chadwhitacre]

I'd like to change the "conflict team" to the "safety team" and use safety@gittip.com

Done. What else do we need on this?