This seems like an excellent time to re-up a call for semi-formalizing Code4Lib as an organization.
I know that folks really aren't thrilled with things like committees and quorums, but ultimately, groups that take collective decisions need a *mechanism* for doing so.
Edwin V. Sperr, MLIS
AU/UGA Medical Partnership
Office of Graduate Medical Education
Clinical Information Librarian
St. Mary’s Hospital
1230 Baxter Street
Athens, GA 30606
p: 706-389-3864
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w: medicalpartnership.usg.edu<http://www.medicalpartnership.usg.edu/>
________________________________
From: Code for Libraries <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Kate Deibel <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, July 3, 2019 2:02 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] From the Community Support Squad wrt "Note [admiistratativia]"
Yes, you, Francis, and Mark publicly committed to working to expand the role of the CSS/CSVs at C4L19 via Mark's lightning talk. You three did drop the ball in announcing the conference volunteers would be continuing their roles. They were vetted and approved for the conference only. People may have objections to them serving community conduct roles in other venues. Furthermore, you have restricted participation to a narrow group. Not everyone could be a CSV at a conference. Maybe they weren't able to attend? Maybe they had additional duties to perform?
All that is a separate issue from the "request" (really a directive since it comes from a place of authority) being told to stop posting. Yes, it does effectively hinder future harm from that conversation, but it also constrains any productive conversation as well. This is where the opaqueness debate comes in. There was no awareness of the CSS, its membership, and its authority (which the current CoC implies they have no enforcement). Furthermore, halting a conversation until the CSS group issues a PR is opaque because we have no timeframe or window into that process.
Finally, I ask you all to consider the effects of basing CoC conversations around git terminology. Not everyone uses git or has a GitHub account. Not everyone gets git terminology. It took me more than a few minutes to remember what else PR could mean besides "public relations." How will the CSS support people ensure that git is not a barrier to community participation.
Katherine Deibel | PhD
Inclusion & Accessibility Librarian
Syracuse University Libraries
T 315.443.7178
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222 Waverly Ave., Syracuse, NY 13244
Syracuse University
-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Anne Slaughter
Sent: Wednesday, July 3, 2019 1:36 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] From the Community Support Squad wrt "Note [admiistratativia]"
Seconding Francis' points, and adding that this "failure" does not rest on his shoulders. Mark, Francis, and I publicly committed in San Jose to working to expand the role of the CSS/CSVs to better support the community in situations like this. This work unfortunately hasn't been on any of our front burners yet for all the reasons you might suspect in a volunteer leadership role. But we have a systemic issue with the community's code of conduct. It is written to specifically restrict enforcement to the annual conference, which by definition doesn't give any clear or transparent guidance in dealing with issues outside of the conference proceedings. The work to address that starts now with the process Bobbi introduces in her message, and I assure you that we are committed to doing it openly. It's absolutely not ideal that it's happening in a reactive rather than proactive state, and for that I apologize as well.
Anne Slaughter
Director of Technology Services
Reaching Across Illinois Library System
Burr Ridge Office
Phone: 630.734.5127
Fax: 630.734.5050
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https://www.railslibraries.info
On Wed, Jul 3, 2019 at 11:50 AM -0500, "Francis Kayiwa" <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
Heya Kate my responses interleaved. For starters if there's any opacity I will take this as my fault/oversight. You, Anne, Mark and I spoke in San Jose about the transition to the CSSCSV group after the conference and promised to work on this once we were done. Unfortunately I've been dealing with lots of personal grief and this took less priority....
On 7/3/19 12:37 PM, Kate Deibel wrote:
> Honestly, this is worrisome to me.
>
> First, who are the members of the Community Support Squad? I can find no mention of it anywhere on the website or the wiki. And it's disturbing that such a group let such a coincidence in lack of coverage occur. Yes, there were people listed for the 2019 conference, but to our knowledge, that was to be only for the conference.
It is the same group that was volunteered at the conference.
https://2019.code4lib.org/conduct/#officers
We didn't expect every one to want to continue but all the volunteers offered to hang on during the transition process which once again I failed to deliver on.
>
> Two, shutting down any conversation while an unknown cabal (redundant, I know) discusses a solution that is to come with no projected timeline not only shuts down hurt but also prevents people from speaking up against any hurt that has or is still happening. Imagine if you had done this exact intervention yesterday after the emails about how the C4L mailing list was only to about CODE. You would have prevented the many posters who stood up to counter that narrative. Any teaching moments or learning that have come afterwards would also have been squashed. All that would remain would be the unchallenged statements of what the C4L community is only about: code. That silence would speak way more hurt. Sure, the Community Support Squad will eventually raise a solution... I mean a "pull request"...
Bobbi pointed out (and I told you about a week ago via our DM twitter that we were mostly out). Now it is fair to imagine if I'd actually followed through on establishing a CSSCSV group as I promised you that this perhaps could have been handled very differently. Again. Blame me for this and that would be fair.
>
> It's uncomfortably ironic in that this conversation started with concerns about the transparency of the authorship and the procedures behind the sexual harassment articles but is now being "handled" by an opaque process where we are told to wait until the mystery box goes ping.
>
I disagree here. The process isn't opaque. The processes will be discussed and we welcome PR's via the aforementioned pull request.
Furthermore if that doesn't work, you and others are welcome to send messages to [log in to unmask]
I want to stress, I've gone rogue here and I am speaking without consulting with the rest of the CSSCSV team.
Cheers,
./fxk
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