On 12/2/2012 9:19 PM, Esmé Cowles wrote:
> I think this raises some interesting questions about community and
> appropriate use of the code4lib name. I just took a look at the
> code4lib reddit and there were comments from a handful of people. If
> a handful of people want to create some new channel and call it
> code4lib, is that OK?
It always has been up to now, it's how every single part of code4lib was
created. So it's how we got here.
> Who decides that?
That handful of people do.
> Does it matter if it's part
> of something like reddit, that is seriously at odds with our budding
> anti-harassment policy?
I think it's far from clear that a code4lib subreddit is inherently at
odds with an anti-harrasment policy (OR more importantly, at odds with
our desire to be a comfortable place for all sorts of people including
people from disadvantaged groups, which is more important than any
particular policy).
But of course not everyone will agree on this, perhaps I am wrong. I'd
suggest that if you think someone is doing is something with the
code4lib name you find harmful to code4lib, you bring it up with them,
either in private or in public, whatever you prefer.
I think it's more productive to discuss this in concrete than in
abstract. I don't think we need some general policy or beucrocracy on
who can use the code4lib name, we've never had one before. But instead
of that, what we have is the ability to discuss _any particular use_
that people don't like -- so if you don't like the group on reddit,
let's talk about THAT, specifically.
If the general consensus seems to be that there shouldn't be a code4lib
reddit area, then I suspect the people who created it will get rid of
it. That's always happened before. If they don't, then the community can
decide what we should do to distance that from code4lib (which we'd have
to do anyway with non-compliant folks even if we had a policy and
beurocracy over who was allowed to use the name).
So if this is not just hypothetical but you actually are concerned about
it, please do bring it up in a separate thread on the list, or start by
contacting the folks who created the reddit thing off-list, whatever you
prefer.
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