Loomio
Thu 27 Apr 2023 8:53PM

Proposal for Change to Code of Conduct

JC juniper cameryn Public Seen by 215

Hello all!

I shared a concern in here about specificity of language and potential for abuse several months ago. You can read that thread here: https://www.loomio.com/d/sdUcLBWD/specificity-of-language-regarding-content-warnings

I'm bringing this back up because today I was notified that a post of mine was reported from another instance and was determined to not have violated the code of conduct. However it brought back up for me that this particular clause could easily be abused without clear and specific guidelines around it, and that as our instance grows that specificity becomes even more important.

The things I write about can by nature be distressing. It is part of what my audience values my writing for- it is pushing against popular wellness narratives and attempting to help people grow and be more mature and healthy in the way they relate to themselves and each other. I have been targeted for harassment in the past because of the things I write (and being honest I suspect the person who reported me may have been adjacent to those people).

This matters a lot to me because while I fully agree with any code of conduct that ensures we aren't posting things that are hateful or abusive, it is the nature of life and growth that we may find things that push us to think in ways we're not comfortable with "distressing." We also have a plethora of tools on the platform from blocking, muting, and hiding certain terms if people don't wish to see it. This is a rule that begs a lot of questions too about news and content that is political or challenging in nature. The climate crisis is one example that comes to mind.

Here is the proposal I am submitting:

I propose that we remove "content that is likely to be distressing or hurtful to others" under what must be nested under a CW from Social.Coop Member Code of Conduct v3.1 section 5 https://wiki.social.coop/docs/Code-of-conduct.html

I am submitting this proposal under the assumption that we can have some productive conversation if there is any disagreement or other members think doing so would require us to flesh out boundaries a bit more clearly.

DB

Doug Belshaw Fri 28 Apr 2023 6:03AM

Absolutely! But this is being framed as a vote, not a discussion.

DS

Danyl Strype Wed 3 May 2023 8:07AM

@juniper cameryn

I'm not looking for people to immediately accept my proposal as is, I'm looking for discussion that can help flesh out and develop these concerns.

This is totally reasonable. Loomio has a number of tools that can be used for this, such as the Sense Check, before proceeding to a formal proposal.

JN

Joshua Neds-Fox [@[email protected]]
Disagree
Thu 27 Apr 2023 8:54PM

I think CWs are the mechanism that allow us to advance challenging discourse without unduly subjecting each other to automatic distress. I'm not sure there's a balanced way to come to a consensus about what constitutes "distress" or "harm," and that's what we'd need before we pulled this language out. I vote to err on the side of protection.

AS

Andrew Shead
Abstain
Thu 27 Apr 2023 8:54PM

I have no preference either way.

ZS

Zee Spencer
Disagree
Thu 27 Apr 2023 8:54PM

It sounds like the clause worked as intended, in that another instance with a different definition reported content; and our moderation team's evaluation was that it didn't violate our policies.

Subjective definitions are scary, but ultimately trust is the key to healthy practices.

I am curious if a better place to focus and build trust would be shoring up our policies around removing bad moderators?

JC

juniper cameryn Thu 27 Apr 2023 9:55PM

@Zee Spencer I'm curious what you think about my proposed language addition in a comment below (I'll tag you in it). I think you're right that trust around uncertainty is definitely at play here. Maybe the angle can be encouraging relational responsibility as well, which I'm attempting to do with the added language below.

MB

Moon Baron
Disagree
Thu 27 Apr 2023 8:54PM

I feel that broad definitions are most insidious when they have dramatic implications, & I do agree that the current phrasing is broad & open to lots of interpretation.

That said, I feel like compelling someone to use CWs is a pretty low-impact accommodation. We can maybe add language in the future to ensure that members aren't unduly censured for not using CWs b/c the situations under which they "must" be applied by the CoC are very fuzzy, but I haven't much problem with the current CW clause.

AW

Aaron Wolf
Disagree
Thu 27 Apr 2023 8:54PM

I think this whole issue is yet another symptom of unhealthy common views of what Codes of Conduct are for. Violations of CoC should be common enough and treated with restorative approaches so that we don't see them as some absolute hard-line zero-tolerance sort of thing. It's okay that they are open to human interpretation. We avoid corruption more at the enforcement-process layer rather than make CoC try to function like strict programs. The CW action is not the same as blocking a message.

EL

Eric Leland
Disagree
Thu 27 Apr 2023 8:54PM

I do agree that "distressing" is very fuzzy, however a CW is more of a heads-up courtesy and not censoring. It empowers people to report content as distressing and have the team here judge that accordingly. I would prefer to enable some more reporting here in case patterns emerge that are causing distress that we did not anticipate and find valid.

TR

Tom Resing
Disagree
Thu 27 Apr 2023 8:54PM

There’s no reason stated for making this change.

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