Community Direction, Rules & Privacy

[flourish]

First off: since I'm bumping it off the top of the page, everyone take a second and go share some links at the Resource Roundup post that elf kindly made for us! We're hoping to develop those resources into linkspams about various topics, so that in future, we can point to other people's words and not just rely on our own.

As we've had the first couple posts in the community, laughingmedusa and I have been talking a lot (and talking with some of you) about what direction the community ought to go. As some of you may know, the community was started based on several incidents in the feminist blogosphere, wherein it seemed like all possibility of constructive discussion was destroyed because of the huge numbers of people getting involved - people who didn't know each other at all, and therefore didn't share anything or feel any accountability to each other about their actions.

That was the rationale behind creating a small community, really more of a discussion group: the idea that, if everybody has a chance to get to know each other, civil discourse will be easier, even when we are angry and frustrated and ready to snap. But almost immediately, the comm got much bigger than we had expected. We should have known better - in retrospect, we should have realized how many people from our flists and drolls would be interested, how few friends we actually shared in common, and how quickly things were going to snowball. Most of all, we should have workshopped the rules and profile info more carefully. But at the beginning, it looked like it was going to be me, laughingmedusa, verity, jlh, and maybe five or six other people - so it seemed like we'd have plenty of time to discuss the rules later, and it seemed like surely we would share so much knowledge and awareness of each other that we wouldn't need to explain ourselves too thoroughly.

Obviously, our assumptions were wrong. Now we need to actually, you know, define what the hell we're doing, since it obviously isn't what we initially set out to do.

As a result, we've decided that, as of noon EST tomorrow (13 October), we are going to close membership to this community. The goal will be to allow people who are currently members to get to know each other without adding new folks - limiting our growth so that we can begin to understand each other and build up trust. It would be foolish to try and kick anybody off, and we don't want to, anyway: everyone who is here, we think can and should be an excellent member of the group.

This is not a step we take lightly. Obviously, there are costs to it: the primary one is that the group will remain more or less at its current demographics, which are fairly white and cis and USian. But, laughingmedusa and I have agreed that it's the only way to get some amount of stability while we determine what the hell is going on. We will probably allow people to join again at some point in the fairly near future; we just need to give everyone a chance to take a breath, learn some names, learn some usericons, and figure out who's interested in and able to speak to what.

We also would like current members' opinions on what our rules, now that we're formally writing them, should be. Fuzzy statements like "give people the benefit of the doubt" need to be clarified, because the audience is no longer the ten people who have been following the situation all the way. We also need to decide on some pretty important things. For instance: Are we interested in using private posts sometimes, that only community members can see? (Benefit: people who are in the closet or uncomfortable talking about personal matters can discuss these issues with the community without fear. Cost: Further locking down, people who are not members of the now-not-open community cannot possibly get access to the posts to give their perspective, which might be sorely needed.) Or, are we interested in engaging in discussions about what some people might call '101-level' anti-racism etc? (Benefit: People who are tired of having those discussions don't have to have them; people who have too few spoons to deal with it don't have to deal with it. Cost: Some people can no longer take an active part in the group, even though they may be awesome people who just have not ever encountered this stuff before.) I'll put my own perspectives in a comment to this post, and so will laughingmedusa, but we want to know what you think, too. If this comm is going to work, all members need to buy into the premises.

So: What are your thoughts? What should our rules be, and where do we go from here? (And our private inboxes are also open, if you would prefer to talk that way.)

[Co-signed, flourish and laughingmedusa.]

Comments

[flourish]

I think I understand what you mean, and I'm not entirely sure how to deal with it either, but I do think that there has to be some way to find a happy medium between these things. There just HAS to.

[jlh]

Yeah, no. I'm getting shouted down right now by a whole bunch of people over at havoc's journal, and I'm pretty much actually physically shaking right now and I'm going to go cry in the bathroom in a sec.

And given the comment below me, I'm thinking that there isn't a happy medium. Or there isn't one that would be respected by anyone. Which makes me sad? But there it is.

I don't want to hold you guys back with my ridiculousness, so I think you should probably just ignore me and just carry on, and I can come in and be your black girls 101 person whenever you need one to make up for it.

sorry.

[flourish]

!!!!

I guess - I mean - there's not much I can say to this, other than: I don't want to ignore you, carry on, and call you in to be black girls 101. That is so far from what I would like to do, because I care about you (even if only in the internetty sort of way), and I would like to not hurt you, or - anyway, I don't think you're ridiculous.

[jlh]

Thanks!

Ugh, I'm sorry, yesterday was just TOO MUCH man. I think the rules look good, I'll comment there, but I wanted to acknowledge what you said to me here because I really super appreciate it.

[flourish]

I understand. We all have those days. And I am so glad that it helped, and that (I hope!) you are feeling less freaked!

[elf]

I would like this to be a community where we can say "I don't like the way [this] is being dealt with, and no, I don't have any sparkly better answers, and yes, those are some good points, and I still don't like it," and not get shouted down, not get told "the *good* activists agree it should be done *this* way."

[jlh]

That would be really fantastic! I feel that we should be able to achieve that. Maybe the committment is really to not just multiplicity diversity blah blah, but actually saying, there isn't a right way. We aren't even trying to get to A right way. Maybe it's that there a few better ways.

[trinker]

I am *really* sorry you're getting shouted down somewhere. I've been hosting discussions of race in my LJ journal, and it's...it's not all calm and safe all the time, but it's very much a "people shouting at PoC is not tolerated" space.

I have no idea what it is you're hoping for...but if you need backup...you should not be alone. I've been the lonely PoC in an allegedly friendly comm before, and it got pretty fraught.

[jlh]

Thanks! I really appreciate that.

It wasn't actually connected to being a PoC, but just the whole anger thing, and me being exhausted of the damn anger.

I've often been the only PoC during in person conversations, but rarely online actually! Possibly because I'm mostly in fannish spaces and by the time I started moving around we already had deadbro and a feeling of race consciousness within fandom. But we should sort of keep alive the idea that while this might be a mostly white comm, it isn't a white comm.

[trinker]

I've often been the only PoC during in person conversations, but rarely online actually! Possibly because I'm mostly in fannish spaces and by the time I started moving around we already had deadbro and a feeling of race consciousness within fandom.

Ah. Lucky you.

But we should sort of keep alive the idea that while this might be a mostly white comm, it isn't a white comm.

It's currently a white-by-default comm, and there's a lot of assuming the audience of any communication is white-by-default. I'm uncomfortable with that. I feel very Othered by that.

[jlh]

I feel very Othered by that.

Ah, that's it exactly. Thanks for identifying that.

There has to be a good space between the idea that there are a lot of white people here, and the idea that not everyone is white. We seem to be achieving that with the idea that not everyone is straight or able, and it seems like there are at least enough of us PoCs already being verbal right now that we can say, this isn't a white place. Cis, perhaps, but not white.

[imaginarycircus]

You are not being ridiculous at all. I have enormous respect for you. And we would never allow people to shout at you in this space. I want you to be here, because you are my friend, and you are so smart, but I understand if you are unwilling to trust us without some proofs that this space might OK for you. I want this space to be OK for you so badly, but I know that will take time and as a comm we may not meet your expectations or be fulfilling for you. But since you were a huge part of the impetus for me doing this I want it to be OK for you! <3 I've spent the last 36 hours doing almost nothing else, but working on this comm and talking to users about it.

I really don't want this to be a angry comm. We're definitely going to ask people to tag their posts as "angry" or "venting" so people who are not up to dealing with it can skip them. Many of us don't have the energy to deal with that all the time, if at all. Other people can take that sort of upset and not let it get to them. We're all very different. But as a mod and maintainer I will try to read and respond to every post and I imagine that is going to be hard. But I know I can do it. And I believe we can work on making a place for you here.

OMG YOU ARE NOT OUR TOKEN ANYTHING. I hope you don't think we think that about you or anyone in this comm. There are at least six PoC here now and I would love to welcome more PoC and transfolk here, people who are not academics, and non-Americans, but I think we have to do that with more than just our good intentions. I have noted that a lot of the PoC and trans people have not intro'd themselves and I think we have to earn their trust. I'm doing my very best.

Race and class are great issues to talk about here. They are a bit harder for me to talk about, but I want to learn to do better, to be a better ally.

[jlh]

One way might be to stop referring to this as a white comm and talking about how white it is. Maybe, there are some white people here! Also some people who are not white! I hadn't really thought about this before, so if I'm phrasing this in a hurtful way I really don't mean to, as my feelings are not hurt, but it's weird to have people refer to a comm as being X, when you're in the comm and you are Y, and X and Y are not the focus of the comm. Like, it's fine to call this a female comm, because feminism is the focus. That it's mostly-white and mostly-cis is frankly, what people would expect from a comm that isn't specifically trying to be about race or about trans issues. My default for comms that aren't specifically black is, mostly-white-but-not-entirely.

I think the angry tag will be great! That may well help me a lot, as I can take it in when I feel stronger and not take it in when I don't. Thanks!

[imaginarycircus]

Not hurtful at all. It's an excellent point. I never meant to imply we were all anything. Several members were concerned about it being a mostly white comm and some of them were PoCs. Flourish and I were worried about a disproportionate number of people being cis white academics. It does seem to be the default for many online comms, but I still think it's worth thinking and talking about. But we should watch how we define the comm, you're right.

I want this to be a good place to discsuss feminist issues, but because of places where feminism intersects with race or class or trans issues I do want to be aware of those issues too and sensitive to the differences as well as the sameness between us all. Like I want to make sure I am calling a transman by his preferred pronoun because calling him, "her" could be very hurtful. I didn't know that until last year. I'm very glad I know it now.

[quantumdani]

I'd love to be part of a discussion where we challenge the normalcy of this: My default for comms that aren't specifically black is, mostly-white-but-not-entirely.

I understand why it's your default, but I am really trying to work on a world where it's not and where the people around me are discomforted by the idea that it is. I have to, otherwise I am stuck in my neverending sea of being the only one in the room. In particular, my experiences of sexism are primarily where they intersect with my experiences with race: being left out of discussions about women OR being left out of discussions about people of color. Anyway, I realize that not all women of color experience or relate to feminism in this way, but I wanted to throw that out there. I know that [Unknown site tag] and [Unknown site tag] have in part been responding to prompts from people like me. I would really hate to be part of a community where I showed up and it was supposed to be a foregone, normal conclusion that it would be largely white.

That said, I like the idea of not seeing this as a white comm but as a comm where whites are overrepresented. Maybe just semantics, but I think it sets the tone differently.

[quantumdani]

I seem to be unable to edit my comment (I can't find the icon??) so I just meant imaginarycircus and flourish.

[flourish]

I think that the change in semantics definitely sets the tone differently in my mind. It even sets it differently from "This comm is mostly white people."

Saying "overrepresented" (1) suggests that the ideal composition of the comm would be less white (true, IMHO) and (2) suggests that the composition of the comm may change (and hopefully will).

[laughingmedusa]

YES!

[jlh]

Maybe this is something that we need to make a separate post about--not that I don't want to continue THIS conversation, but this thread has collapsed so a lot of people aren't seeing it. Also I'd be really interested to hear you expand on the idea of challenging that default!

For me, having grown up in Maine and adopted by a white family, almost all the spaces I'm in all the time are default majority white unless they purposely are not, so much so that I don't really think about it. But when I say default majority white, I don't mean that in an "I assume that everyone I'm talking to is white" but more, "majority white is not particularly remarkable." And while I understand the concern from both Katie and Flourish and the other PoC who've joined to have the comm be less white, I so far in other spaces have found the conversations around that to be, as trinker said above, somewhat othering.

I don't know if you'd like to start that post, or I can with what I was saying and how you and trinker brought different ideas to it, and open it up. But I'd really just be repeating this convo, so if you have other things (particularly, challenging the default) it would be awesome if you started the post.

[laughingmedusa]

And part of the work I want to do with the comm is to grow it into a place where there is far more diversity.