+1

Perhaps, instead of a policy document (which is inherently rules-based), we
have a statement of belief and a pledge to stand by it (which is more of a
good-faith social contract).  Those of us who believe in it could sign it in
some way, perhaps through GitHub  This way we'd still have a document to
point people at, but we wouldn't have to worry about coding up rules that
work for every conceivable situation.

A basic statement of belief:

We don't believe that people should harm each other.

The basic situations we'd need to cover are:

a) I am harmed by someone - a pledge to speak up, either to the person
directly or to someone else in the community
b) someone is harmed by me - a pledge to review my behavior and take
appropriate action (apologize, or explain why I feel the behavior is
justified)
c) someone is harmed by someone else - a pledge to be willing to listen to
both parties, and form our opinions of the situation in light of the
statement of belief

Do you all think something like this would work for the whole community?


-Ian

-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Jonathan Rochkind
Sent: Friday, January 25, 2013 1:25 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Group Decision Making (was Zoia)

>  The best way, in my mind,
is to somehow create a culture where someone can say: "you know, I'm not ok
with that kind of remark" and the person spoken to can respond "OK, I'll
think about that." 

I think that's a really good to try to create, Karen says it just right.
Note that "OK, I'll think about it" is neither "No, you must be mistaken"
nor "Okay, I will immediately do whatever you ask of me."  But it does need
to be a legitimate actual "I'll think about it", seriously. 

The flip side is that the culture is also one where when someone says "you
know, I'm not ok with that kind of remark", it often means "And I'd like you
to think about that, in a real serious way" rather than "And I expect you to
immediately change your behavior to acede to my demands."

Of course, what creates that, from both ends, is a culture of trust.  Which
I think code4lib actually has pretty a pretty decent dose of already, let's
try to keep it that way. (In my opinion, one way we keep it that way is by
continuing to resist becoming a formal rules-based bueurocratic
organization, rather than a community based on social ties and good faith). 

Now, at some times it might really be neccesary to say "And I expect you to
immediately stop what you're doing and do it exactly like I say."  Other
times it's not.  But in our society as a whole, we are so trained to think
that everything must be rules-based rather than based on good faith trust
between people who care about each other, that we're likely to asume that
"you know, i'm not ok with that remark" ALWAYS implies "And therefore I
think you are an awful person, and your only hope of no longer being an
awful person is to immediately do exactly what I say."  Rather than "And I
expect you to think about this seriously, and maybe get back to me on what
you think."  So if you do mean the second one when saying "you know, i'm not
ok with that remark", it can be helpful to say so, to elicit the
self-reflection you want, rather than defensiveness.  And of course, on the
flip-side, it is obviously helpful if you can always respond to "you know,
i'm really not okay with that"!
  with reflection, rather than defensiveness. 
________________________________________
From: Code for Libraries [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Karen Coyle
[[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, January 25, 2013 12:22 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Group Decision Making (was Zoia)

On 1/24/13 3:09 PM, Shaun Ellis wrote:
>
>
> To be clear, I am only uncomfortable with "uncomfortable" being used 
> in the policy because I wouldn't support it being there. Differing 
> opinions can make people uncomfortable.  Since I am not going to stop 
> sharing what may be a dissenting opinion, should I be banned?

I can't come up with a word for it that is unambiguous, but I can propose a
scenario. Imagine a room at a conference full of people -- and that there
are only a few people of color. A speaker gets up and shows or says
something racist. It may be light-hearted in nature, but the people of color
in that almost-all-white audience feel....
uncomfortable/insulted/discriminated against.

I had a great example that I can no longer find -- I think it came through
on Twitter. It showed a fake ad with an image of border patrol agents
rounding up "illegal aliens" in the desert, and used the ad copy:
"We can take care of all of your papers" as the ad line for a business
computing company. It's a "joke" that you can almost imagine someone
actually doing. Any latinos in the audience would be within their rights of
jumping up and shouting at the speaker, but in fact sexism and racism work
precisely because people struggling for equal status are least likely to
gain that status if they speak up against the status quo. What I think we
want to change is the social acceptance of speaking up.

There's a difference between an intellectual disagreement (I think the earth
is round/I think the earth is flat) and insulting who a person is as a
person. The various "*isms* (sexism, racism, homophobia) have a demeaning
nature, and there is an inherent lowering of status of the targeted group.
Booth babes at professional conferences are demeaning to women because they
present women as non-professional sex objects, and that view generally
lowers the social and intellectual status of women in the eyes of attendees,
including the professional women who are attending. Because of this, many
conferences now ban booth babes. No conference has banned discussion of
alternate views of the universe.

It's hard to find a balance between being conscious of other peoples'
sensibilities and creating a chilling effect. The best way, in my mind, is
to somehow create a culture where someone can say: "you know, I'm not ok
with that kind of remark" and the person spoken to can respond "OK, I'll
think about that." If, however, every "I'm not ok" becomes a battle, then we
aren't doing it right. The reason why it shouldn't be a battle is that there
is no absolute right or wrong. If someone tells you "You're standing too
close" then you know you've violated a personal space limit that is specific
to that person. You don't know why. But there's nothing to argue about --
it's how that person feels. All you have to do is listen, and be
considerate. Eventually we all learn about each other. It's an interaction,
not an interdiction.

kc


>
> It's an anti-harassment policy, not a comfort policy.  If you want to 
> see something different, it seems that now is the time to step up and 
> change it. :)
>
>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf 
>> Of Shaun Ellis
>> Sent: Friday, 25 January 2013 10:38 AM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Group Decision Making (was Zoia)
>>
>>> I am uneasy about coming up with a policy for banning people (from
>>> what?) and voting on it, before it's demonstrated that it's even 
>>> needed. Can't we just tackle these issues as they come up, in 
>>> context, rather than in the abstract?
>>>
>>
>> I share your unease.  But deciding to situations in context without a 
>> set of guidelines is simply another kind of policy. I'm actually more 
>> uneasy about ambiguity over what is acceptable, and no agreed upon 
>> way to handle it.
>>
>> I don't think the current policy is ready to "go to vote" as it seems 
>> there is still some debate over what it should cover and exactly what 
>> type of behavior it is meant to prevent.
>>
>> I suggest there is a set time period to submit objections as GitHub 
>> issues and resolve them before we vote.  Whatever issues can't get 
>> resolved end up in a branch/fork.  In the end, we vote on each of the 
>> forks, or "no policy at all".
>>
>> Does that sound reasonable?
>>
>> --
>> Shaun Ellis
>> User Interace Developer, Digital Initiatives Princeton University 
>> Library
>>
>>
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>
>

--
Karen Coyle
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ph: 1-510-540-7596
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skype: kcoylenet