Reporting Guidelines: Feedback for revisions

I can't make the meeting but the wording "In some cases the [CWG] may determine that a public statement will need to be made. If that's the case, the identities of all victims and reporters will remain confidential unless those individuals instruct us otherwise." seems to imply that the CWG would not be empowered to release the name of a person violating the CoC under any circumstance.

I hope that in the event of an ongoing threat to our members or members of the community writ large (e.g. a repeat abuser or predator) that S.C would be empowered to warn the public.

Good point. Can you think of wording for this, to add to the document? I'm not sure what would work.

IMO we should strike the entire sentence - it ties our hands in the event of a serious abuser, whether they're a reporter or a reportee

I added your suggestion as a comment on the etherpad doc linked above.

Thanks

Thanks for posting this Emi!

I highly recommend reviewing the work of folks at Enspiral and Loomio on this:
https://handbook.enspiral.com/agreements/personal_conduct.html
https://handbook.enspiral.com/agreements/harassment_and_abuse.html
https://handbook.enspiral.com/guides/conflict-resolution.html
and more generally: https://www.thehum.org/resources

Thanks Mayel, I think. ;-) The problem is that I like this enspiral material a lot -- tbh I would happy to just copy/paste most of it -- at the same time I find the prospect of going through all this and comparing it to what we all have produced after many iterations exhausting. What would be a big help would be for someone involved in Enspiral to look at the most recent CoC docs and highlight problem areas where the Enspiral material could be used.

Good point. You could try asking @richdecibels who is on social.coop, would be great to have those folks directly involved!

Francesca Pick could be the person? She's Enspiral ambassador for community development and new governance models. She was at Open2018 this last week, gave a couple of presentations - Mayel, you may have talked to her? https://enspiral.com/pages/people

But not on social.coop.

Thanks for the video discussion earlier, where much of this was raised and talked over. To me, it's fine that some people find the prospect of softer conflict resolution daunting. However in my experience the harder approach alone rarely solves anything, and makes for hugely more wasted time and energy in the long run. It's just that it isn't always obvious.

We'll have a go, anyway, at spelling out more of what a soft resolution process would look like, and in my opinion it is just about all there in Enspiral's materials. If I were to add one thing, it might be that even before being "qualified" people differ greatly in their natural or learned abilities in empathy, active / reflective listening, and conflict resolution processes more widely. I would like us to be more aware of these skills, to give them lots of credit and encouragement where they appear, and to encourage people actively to develop them.

Several techniques can be developed effectively without needing qualifications. (One does of course need some insight, awareness and maturity!) As Enspiral say, NVC is one useful starting point, though not without critics. I find Radical Honesty a useful complement, though also with reservations. I find Parker Palmer's work inspiring, though perhaps even more challenging to do well. The approach I have most experience of so far is Restorative Circles which I have found very helpful and promising in real cases of community conflict.

So, I'm hoping that we will be able to add another layer of care to the "reporting" process above, while keeping something like what has been proposed as a backstop when softer approaches fail (as they sometimes do). But the benefits of these softer approaches are many. It's an environment where people can grow, emotionally and socially, rather than being further marginalised and alienated. It's a way of including and supporting people, of healing even. It's a way of recognising that people's misbehaviour is sometimes a tragic misguided attempt at connection, and not losing the great value of restoring someone to a caring and productive community.