Managing Anti-social Behaviour Online
I feel it is important that the team who facilitate comms and social media enable positive discourse, without enforcing a set of rules or censoring. Both Nest Tone of Voice and Social Media guidelines were drafted in 2017 and approved by the Core Team to encourage positivity and compassion in all our interactions, both from the Core Team and across the wider community.
As we are continuing to improve our governance and organisation, i think this is a good time to capture some thoughts and a way forward that the majority of the Community agree with and endorse. These guidelines should fit into our Code of Conduct (which has also been recently refreshed) and will underpin all platforms.
The ToV and Social Media guidelines are aligned to our 11 Principles and encourage respect, basic human decency, civility, consideration and compassion.
I would like to invite a discussion about what the Community would like to see in formalising a set of guidelines devised and sanctioned by the Community to address anti-social behaviour online, in particular language and behaviour relating to racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia and ableism, to look at not only whether this behaviour should be minimised; and if so how it should be minimised, addressing the impacts and consequences of such behaviour (for example, discouraging under privileged folks from attending and collaborating) and the wider consequences of complicity to such behaviour or opposition to such behaviour.
Everyone is welcome to join in the discussion and i'll add the documents i've referenced above this evening when i have access to my personal laptop.
Nick Staines Sat 11 May 2019 11:28AM
I think when moderating discussion it's important to come down on abusive behaviour whether or not someone is making a valid point. The post that kicked off everything yesterday may have had a valid point however it was completely inappropriately communicated. It was vitriolic and publicly shamed someone who, at most, made an innocent mistake (in the course of performing a massive service to the community). Even if a private email had been sent as well, this person had no opportunity to reply and make amends before they were publicly castigated.
Just because the person in question, showing more grace and dignity than nearly anyone else in all sides of the discussion, apologised that doesn't make it ok. This is not a “fragile white person” thing. It's about treating people with basic respect and not assuming bad faith, regardless of how just you believe your righteous anger to be.
As a community I think we need to get better at not simply siding with who we agree with but calling out the way people communicate their arguments even if we agree with the point being made. We need a lot more of “I agree this is a valid point but your response is disproportionate and possibly breaches our code of conduct”.
Tom Allen Sat 11 May 2019 11:32AM
I couldn't agree more. volunteer shaming and exclusionary statements have no place in this community. For the admins to support it so strongly too is a worrying trend. But burner culture totally lacks accountability so far it seems...
Amandasm Sat 11 May 2019 12:20PM
Agree with you Nick. Educate your fellow Burners on issues you care about or that you perceive to be a problem in the community, share your personal opinions, but give people the benefit of the doubt that their intentions are good. Don't attack everyone who has a different opinion on it.. or in this case, everyone who wasn't even aware of the issue were treated like they were consciously being total jerks for not knowing. Besides being disrespectful, that's not the best technique for convincing people to open up to considering your view. It's easy to give a pass to people you agree with but abusive behaviour is abusive regardless. If we're going to draw a line then it needs to be enforced in a fair and understandable manner.
Amandasm Sat 11 May 2019 12:21PM
But Tom, let's not assume bad faith on behalf of the entire 'burner culture' either, because of a discussion on FB.
Tom Allen Sat 11 May 2019 12:46PM
Oh if only it was one discussion on FB. I've seen these patterns many times in many burn groups around the world, this ain't my first rodeo as they say :)
Case Sat 11 May 2019 9:39PM
(not serious post right now because now is not the time to discuss it) fancy seeing if we can break away from the whole burning man thing? (from limited recent exposure) it feels like BM is used purely for shouting about radical inclusion and self-reliance to allow people to not be called out for being offensive. Remove burn from the group names, the problems all go away right? :P (Seriously I would like to have this once the event is well and truly over, because I want to know what benefits being associated have but recognise now is really not the time)
Amandasm Sun 12 May 2019 8:49AM
Case, that's an interesting idea for a new thread (after Nest). I do see a bit of tension sometimes between members of regionals who are committed to there being a clear underlying, unchanging link with BM and those who want to see them evolve beyond that and possibly break ties.
Yon Sun 12 May 2019 5:23PM
Nick I agree with what you're saying, the tone of much of the discussion was disrespectful. I think it boils down to people not understanding what sort of conversations are good ones for a public forum. If people have disagreements with what someone writes in a form or have feedback then they should give that feedback directly to the person, with compassion and good faith. It's up to that person whether they then accept the feedback or not. Posting anything about one individual in a public forum is not conducive to creating change or discussion and can easily feel like an attack even when put forward suitably (which yesterdays post was not). Online text is wholly the wrong way to communicate around anything that might have emotional content.
Siren Wed 15 May 2019 1:36PM
Completely agree with this @nickstaines1. The way it was delivered was awful and i was quite quick to correct Ivy in her misconceptions about it being part of Nest org. And becuase it wasn't part of nest org that's why i left the thread going, because otherwise it's censorship.
So, as a question to everyone in this example, what would the community prefer comms team to do? Close the discussion down straight away or let it ride as we did? Because this is a rock and a hard place censorship thing.
In fact @charlottedavis and i were discussing off line at the time, and she said 'let's close it down' and i said 'no we had this discussion at Nest Team meeting and agreed we shouldn't be moderating or censoring online conversations'... so then it got really involved and it was when Adele apologised that became the obvious and most beautiful point of conclusion to close it down.
So going forward perhaps we need to build into the guidelines 'if you have an issue, please try to rectify privately before broadcasting to the community'...? And then to Dave's point with a list of contact s in the About section so that people know who to reach out to.
But it would still be really great to get a sense of 'what would the community like us to do' should this ever happen again. (which incidentally is what i then asked everyone on facebook and had majority support from people interacting)
Paul · Wed 15 May 2019 1:19PM
You're welcome :)
Just to clarify: I'm accept your point about dreads - I don't have any knowledge about the specific subject to comment one way or the other!