take duckinator's article on board

[chadwhitacre]

"On Open Companies, Consent, and Safety (among other things)"

The general idea of Open Companies, as proposed by Chad Whitacre (the founder of Gittip) and elaborated on later, both in person and by the Open Company Initiative, is fascinating to me. I call out Gittip quite often throughout this article, as a side effect of it being the only Open Company which I have been closely involved with. I am doing this in an attempt to both help Gittip improve in these areas, as well as help other companies avoid these issues to start with.

http://modelviewculture.com/pieces/on-open-companies-consent-and-safety-among-other-things

[chadwhitacre]

(cc: @duckinator)

[chrisdev]

I this suggestion has some merit

"The most successful approach I have seen is having a public chatroom with a few people who have access to the logs, and having them go through and create minutes of meetings and important conversations. The minutes are then made publicly available"

BUT!! So we don't publish the chat logs at all? Additionally, the effort required for this sort of filtering and summarizing is non trivial (unless we can use NLTK and automate) Who will do this kind of work? what is the priority to be attached to this? To some extent the various kinds of blogs proposed can play a role here

[duckinator]

Next paragraph:

This can be done regardless of any company decisions about the publicity of internal discussions, and thus is applicable both to companies like Gittip, as well as companies that are more reserved about publicly logging all discussions.

[chadwhitacre]

So, basically, I love this, @duckinator. Can we start there? I love this. Thank you. :-)

!m @duckinator

I want to digest this piece and process it into +1s and new tickets for Gittip. Forthwith ...

[chadwhitacre]

I've got a really long comment in the works but I'm out of time for right now. Will pick up with this later/tomorrow ...

[chadwhitacre]

As we move forward, we need to treat openness and transparency as tools, not the end result.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes.

One thing that's had me scratching my head this past month is that, when I first started getting traction with the open company idea in the wake of "Turning Down TechCrunch," I explicitly said this very thing! I've gone back through the five interviews I did in the first week after "Turning Down TechCrunch" to review what I said at the time, and I've found some very interesting passages in the first three of them that I think reveal the roots of the Gittip crisis. This is all in early May of 2013, over a year ago, just a couple months after activists started using Gittip in earnest.

First Interview

Here's a passage from the very first open interview I gave, wherein you can watch me arrive for the first time at the idea that, "somehow, openness and transparency are goods, but they're not absolute goods."

Brian Jackson: Do you think that's an inherent thing in your community? Like, if you are expecting to receive money from strangers on the Internet, you practice as much transparency as possible? Are you trying to set the example for your community?

Chad Whitacre: Yeah, what is it? I don't know. For me it's a part of my personality. It's just a long-standing belief that I've held, that honesty is the best policy. And ... what? So, honesty is the best policy. But, honesty ... You can be honest in a closed conversation, right? But somehow, yeah, this idea of openness and transparency is just really important to me. I don't know what to say.

It has something to do with ... I relate a lot of things back to the tension in life between individuals and then groups of people—governments, corporations—but any group of people. There's this tension between the people that make it up, and the overarching entity. It seems like, in our society, people get squished, and you get stuck in Guantanamo Bay for a decade. Right? And I feel like, somehow, openness and transparency is related to that. It's easier for the entities, the collectives that we build for ourselves ... It's easier for those entities—for those governments, for those corporations, for those organizations—it's easier for those entities to squish people if there's secrecy and transparency.

I mean, it's also possible ... you know ... what we saw with Reddit and the Boston bomber. Right? I mean, it's certainly possible for openness ...

Brian: You're talking about the case of mistaken identity, pointing out suspects that were not actually suspects.

Chad: Yeah, exactly. Right? So there you would say, "Well, there's a case of the wisdom of crowds turning into mob rule," right? Which is real. That's real. That happened. So it's not a simple, clear, black-and-white, "closed organizations are evil," and "open mob crowds are good."

So, it's something, and ... I don't know. So this is an experiment. I feel like, somehow, openness and transparency are goods. But, they're not absolute goods. I'm just trying to see how far it goes, and play with that a bit.

Second Interview

In the second interview I did, you can see that I've embraced this idea that openness is not an absolute good, and that the point of having open companies is to mitigate the squishing of individuals.

Mathew Ingram: But it seems as though the openness part is also part of what you want to do with your company.

Chad Whitacre: Absolutely.

Mathew: It's not just a journalism thing. It's more: openness is good per se.

Chad: Yeah, I mean, openness—and I think I said this in the last interview—openness and transparency are goods, but they're not absolute goods. Right? So the counterargument to Guantanamo Bay is—what is it?—the Boston bomber misidentification on Reddit. Sunil Tripathi? Is that his name? You know, there you've got mob rule, right? There you've got the wisdom of crowds turning into mob rule, right? So it's not like openness is this absolute value. What I'm trying to do is get to this point where ... where the individual doesn't get squished, you know? And I think that it's somewhere in between those two.

You know, there's got to be structure. Open source projects have structure. You know, they have leaders, and they have policies and procedures.

Mathew: Otherwise you've got chaos, I guess.

Chad: Yeah, you know, which is ineffective. It doesn't get you anywhere.

Third Interview

The third interview I did, with Gabe Stein, was much more in depth. Gabe brought up "the performative aspect" of open interviews, and we talked for a while about how the democratization of media has also democratized the problem of managing one's public image, and navigating the relationship between one's public and private identities. We also talked about how social pressure is not always bad, and is in fact how communities are formed. Then I struggled pretty hard to say something on camera that is part of my private identity, but which I wasn't comfortable sharing publicly for fear of being "squished by the collective."

Chad: It's super-tricky. Like, there's ... there's stuff. Yeah! I mean, you feel pressure, right? I fee ... I feel ... Okay! I feel ... Dude, I'm going to be radically open. I feel social pressure ... um ... you know ... to say some things and not say others. You know? And ... but see, that's good and bad! And you have to ... Insofar as you want to be part of certain communities, it's a ... you know ... it's part of the game, that it's like, it's part of the entrance fee for being part of the community, having your identity ...

There's so much for me in the group and the individual. You know? That it's like, as an individual, I could do whatever I want. You know? It's like, I could be acting totally antisocial on this camera right now, if I wanted to. You know what I mean? And people do that, right? Like, Chatroulette or whatever. You know what I mean? That, like, you can do that ... And so there's this, there's the, there's a cost associated ... Oh gosh. This is ... I don't know, this is so broad and deep. You know?

It's like ... in ... In the tech world right now there's a huge thing going on: women in tech. Right? It's like, "Women are 20% of tech, why aren't they 50%?" You know? And, "How do we get there?" Right? So there's this movement to make the tech world more open and receptive. Right? And a, you know, safer place and a more welcoming place to women, and not just women but all minorities. Right?

Dude, it's really thorny! You know? 'Cause it's like ... there are ... ah ... it's ... there are really ... Okay, so I tend to approach things ... Here ... Here's the thing ... I tend ... you know ... I ... I'm ... I'm the John Kerry, right? Like, I talk too much. I think too much. I'm not ... I'm ... I ... There's, like, there's sophistication, and then there's, you know, uh, you know, black-and-white bullet point, you know, uh, bumper stickers. Right? And, if left to my own devices, I tend towards the, you know, really ... like, philosophically, you know, just obtuse, let's think this thing through the whole way ...

Gabe: Right.

Chad: ... and I can't do that. You know? I can't go out there and be like, you know, "This is ... this is really weird that I have to, like, toe these lines to be part of this community," and everything like that. Because then ... uh, because ... It's litmus tests, you know? There's these litmus tests. That it's like, if you say anything ... then, you know ... and ... and ... me saying this now! You know, there's people watching this video right now that are going to be like, you know, "Fuck you."

Here's what I'm doing, man, here's what I'm doing: I'm trying to push myself out of my own comfort zone. You know? By, like, starting to say something that I wouldn't otherwise say, right? And ... uh ... I don't know. So ... it's ... it's a weird balance when ... 'cause what I want is for people ... What I want is for each of us as individuals to feel like we're not getting squished by the collective. You know? And I feel like that takes many forms. It can take the form of getting stuck in Guantanamo Bay for a decade, you know? It can also take the form of being misidentified as the Boston bomber.

Gabe: Right.

Chad: You know what I mean? Wisdom of crowds. You know, it can take the form of ... uh ... you know ... Obviously, it can take the form of ... you know, being subject to sexual harassment in a, in a conference, you know? It can also take the form of, you know, being ridiculed on Twitter for making an inappropriate dick joke. You know?

Like, that's all ... that's ... That's really gray and fuzzy stuff.

What Was I Trying to Say?

Speaking anachronistically, I Resent You is the thing I was trying to say there on camera over a year ago.

[chadwhitacre]

Let's recenter on the problems we're trying to solve—instead of the tools being used to reach it—and build out from there.

On my reading, this is the main thesis of your piece, @duckinator. I love it. Per the above, I'm trying to build companies that don't squish people, which aligns with your goal of "creating companies that are run in a way that makes them as trustworthy as possible." There's a lot of theory to continue developing around this.

On the practical side, the four concrete suggestions for Gittip that I'm seeing in your piece are:

[1] Let's give safety and consent the absolute highest priority, with openness and transparency prioritized explicitly below those.

[2] Organize [data] in such a way that it can be accessed, searched, and cited, easily.

[3] [D]iscard the self-selected salary approach that has become popular at some startups, and instead set clear terms for specifying how much somebody is compensated.

[4] [S]tate who it is intended to be safe for and a non-exhaustive list of which ideas are explicitly allowed and explicitly disallowed.

Are there other concrete suggestions in there that I'm overlooking?

[chadwhitacre]

IRC re: "Organize [data] in such a way that it can be accessed, searched, and cited, easily," resulting in #77.

[chadwhitacre]

Re: "[D]iscard the self-selected salary approach" ... "that was one I expected you to entirely disregard, tbh :P" IRC

[tshepang]

Interview 3 was hard to read, and I don't get the point, even if you say it's somehow related to I Resent You. Do you mind explaining a bit @whit537? What were you uncomfortable expressing?

[chadwhitacre]

@tshepang That interview was soon after PyCon 2013, scene of "donglegate," and I was struggling to articulate my discomfort at the way "donglegate" (even just the name) revealed the radicalization of the tech industry. I identify neither with militant feminism, nor with men's rights activism. I believe in dialogue, encounter, openness to one another, kindness, listening, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

I had thought of myself as part of the Python community and the tech scene more widely. Now I feel as if my continued participation in the Python community would have to involve some measure of activism of my own—for dialogue, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Accepting the role of an activist would conflict with my leadership role in Gittip, if only because that'd be a lot of work and I don't have time to do both properly. My stammering in that interview was an early attempt to come to terms with this. I've generally been trying to squelch these opinions for a year, but clearly they've leaked out here and there, culminating in I Resent You a month ago.

Am I answering your question?

[tshepang]

I think I get it. As someone practicing transparency, it is challenging for you when and when not to share. You would love to say "you approaching this wrong" but can't, because that would derail the (supposedly) more important conversation. So you constantly have to try to keep that balance. Not easy.

[chadwhitacre]

@duckinator et al. It seems like #71 is the place to pick up with the discussion of points 1 and 4. Eh?

Let's give safety and consent the absolute highest priority, with openness and transparency prioritized explicitly below those.

[S]tate who it is intended to be safe for and a non-exhaustive list of which ideas are explicitly allowed and explicitly disallowed.

[dsernst]

@whit537 commented 15 days ago:

Re: "[D]iscard the self-selected salary approach" ... "that was one I expected you to entirely disregard, tbh :P" IRC

Is this being entirely dropped? Did it get an issue of its own? IRC logs look like @whit537 & deltab express skepticism, but @duckinator makes important points that there are underlying issues that too easily get swept under the rug:

so wrt salaries: the main problem is that having things of this sort public results in harassment for some users (the same group who set their receiving to private on their Gittip profiles), and as such dissuades them from participating more widely. .... there's also the idea of self-selected salaries resulting in people cutting themselves short even if there's enough money there, which I know happens because a few people have reached out to me privately worrying over it, and I was trying to articulate how to approach it (still am, really).

On this point, I would also include Buffer's Open Salaries post as a successful example of "clear terms for specifying how much somebody is compensated".

[chadwhitacre]

@dsernst What's your proposal re: salaries at Gittip?

[dsernst]

Frankly, I don't have a clear solution yet. But I can relate with the issues @duckinator brought up. & I know personally I would feel uncomfortable "raising my stake" in the team structure, even from $.01 to $.02 (sounds crazy when written like that). I think it has to do with the unclear etiquette? Or not understanding the precedent?

Really glad to see you following up on the matter, though, despite the unclear solution.

I'd suggest for now that the way to approach this is to explicitly identify the issues with the current situation. Does that sound reasonable?

I'll keep thinking on this.

On Monday, August 11, 2014, Chad Whitacre notifications@github.com wrote:

@dsernst https://github.com/dsernst What's your proposal re: salaries at Gittip?

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/gittip/building.gittip.com/issues/76#issuecomment-51864784 .

[chadwhitacre]

I know personally I would feel uncomfortable "raising my stake" in the team structure, even from $.01 to $.02 (sounds crazy when written like that). I think it has to do with the unclear etiquette? Or not understanding the precedent?

@dsernst You should go for it! Raise your take to $0.02 and see what happens! :-)

[chadwhitacre]

Let's give safety and consent the absolute highest priority, with openness and transparency prioritized explicitly below those.

Prioritizing this in two ways: assembling the Safety Team over on #84, and I've added safety as a brand value in 88705d503d8a7af3e88eaa2fbf507897f69328fa:

We value safety as a foundational prerequisite to the possibility of communication, discussion, and deliberation.

[chadwhitacre]

The values change will land here: http://inside.gratipay.com/big-picture/brand/.

[chadwhitacre]

Landed. :-)

[chadwhitacre]

Picking up over at https://github.com/gratipay/inside.gratipay.com/issues/319#issuecomment-163826174 with ...

I previously proposed that all companies should be explicit safe spaces. The problem is that there are varying definitions of safe spaces, and some people claim you can’t have somewhere be a safe space for everyone. I feel a space can be made safe for every person, but not for every idea.

Simply claiming that a company is a safe space is not enough. You must state who it is intended to be safe for and a non-exhaustive list of which ideas are explicitly allowed and explicitly disallowed. These lists always exist at least unofficially.

It’s time to Fucking. Own. Them.

https://modelviewculture.com/pieces/on-open-companies-consent-and-safety-among-other-things