[Noisebridge-discuss] Hi everyone.

[rachel lyra hospodar]

How can we intercede against harassment without, first, defining it?

I'm not making any rules. I never even suggested such a thing. It's a
kneejerk reaction that makes you even see that happening here. I am
adopting that policy for my own use in Noisebridge space, and in the
process attempting to codify established social norms. Anyone wishing to
interact with me has a clear and referrable index for what types of
behaviors I desire from default mode.

You make a robot, and I'll publish my policy, and let's see which works to
keep creepers off my ass.... except language is a system of technology and
so in some ways that policy is my robot. It's already built and running.
Let me know when you finish yours.

BTW I just used your home system to run my robot. PWN!
On Jul 27, 2012 9:14 PM, "Danny O'Brien" <danny at spesh.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Jul 27, 2012 at 08:01:37PM -0700, Liz Henry wrote:
> > Lots of food for thought there, Rachel!
> >
> > On the idea of a no-harassment code,  I think one could be useful for
> > us.  Not harassing people is in theory covered under "be excellent".
> > Expanding that with a list of some specific anti-patterns means that
> > people could feel a little more confident their concerns will be heard
> > and their presence in the space defended.
> >
>
> I actually kind of disagree with this approach, not because of the idea
> behind it, but because of the impossibility of raising to the same level
> as a rule (or even a code of conduct) any literal statement beyond "be
> excellent" in the Noisebridge community.
>
> People who don't really understand Noisebridge's cultural discomfort
> with explicit rules are bound to interpret that failure as meaning that
> culturally we don't care about such harassment, Whereas in fact about
> the only times we've stood united to act was when such harassment was
> potentially an issue: I think every time we've banned or asked, as a
> community, someone to leave, it's been because of concerns of this
> nature.
>
> I think it's setting us up to fail, and fail in a way we don't actually
> reflect internally, to try and haggle over explicit language. Like many
> geek communities, we suck at all of this, but we don't *actually* suck
> worse because we can't get it together to not argue about the precise
> wording.*
>
> I'd much rather continue to work on improving the ways we continue to
> actively intercede with harassment, including role-playing it
> (interceding, not the harassment), building up the habit of backing each
> other up, seeding communities within the wider community, and giant
> robots that electrocute people.
>
> d.
>
> > It doesn't matter that it's not "enforceable" any more than "be
> > excellent" is.
> >
> > When I see a positive statement from an organization that they welcome
> > (laundry list of non-dominant culture identities), or one that they
> > don't tolerate harassment or hate on (laundry list), personally, I do
> > feel more welcome and more confident that I can be in that space. It
> > increases my social trust.
> >
> > Like you, I prefer a transformative approach, mediation, and discussion
> > in most situations.
> >
> > Here is my addition to your suggested code.
> >
> > ----
> >
> > Noisebridge as a community does not tolerate harassment. Harassment
> > includes offensive verbal comments related to gender, sexual
> > orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race,
> > ethnicity, religion, housing status, social class.  It also includes
> > deliberate intimidation, stalking, following, inappropriate physical
> > contact, and unwelcome sexual attention. Participants asked to stop any
> > harassing behavior are expected to do so immediately. We are a diverse
> > community and thus it is especially important that we listen to, and
> > respect, each others' boundaries.
> >
> >
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Liz
> >
> >
> > On 7/27/12 6:11 PM, rachel lyra hospodar wrote:
> > > I have been thinking a lot about what went down this week, and the
> > > ramifications for Noisebridge.  Noisebridge itself, let's remember, is
> > > a technology.  A tool.  It is a system of organizing things that
> > > serves a goal.  That goal?  It varies for its various users, but my
> > > impression of the consensus is this: encouraging the creative use of
> > > technology.  That means disseminating technological skills, creating
> > > access to technological tools, but most importantly, disseminating the
> > > "hacker" mindset of creative problem solving.  There seems to be a
> > > consensus around radical inclusivity.  There is definitely a consensus
> > > around being open to the public, around the idea of *public* access to
> > > this space being important.
> > >
> > > i am going to start with some things I take as given, and would like
> > > for you to examine them.
> > >
> > >     -Systems evolve in a similar way to organic life forms.
> > >     -Societies are systems that we use to offload cognitive processing
> to
> > > the cloud.  Through a set of shared agreements, we are able to create
> > > a piece of software that runs without using our primary processor.
> > > Cool, huh?  An example of this is the set of shared cultural contexts
> > > that allow you to walk down a busy street without getting hit by a
> > > car.
> > >     -An organism may persist even if it is operating inefficiently.
> > >     -Over time, the types of organisms that exist most plentifully will
> > > be those that functioned the most efficiently.
> > >     -it is inefficient to discard most of your resources without even
> > > assessing their potential.  Some of them probably could have
> > > contributed to the efficient function of your organism.
> > >     -Human society, while imperfect, is still wobbling along
> functioning
> > > as our cloud.  America is a bounded instance of an attempt to improve
> > > on that model.  Noisebridge is the same.
> > >
> > > OK.  So then what?
> > >
> > > Human society, American society, our society, a cloud that in
> > > aggregate still runs great portions of Noisebridge, is constantly
> > > discarding most of its human resources without assessing their
> > > potential.  How many awesome hackers are languishing in a ghetto in
> > > New Delhi, or in prison cells all over America?  How many are among us
> > > right now, walking all around us, and not even knowing they are
> > > hackers?
> > >
> > > At least twice as many as we've got right now.
> > >
> > > We don't even have to spring them from prison. We don't even have to
> > > fly to India to visit them. We just have to stop telling them they are
> > > not hackers.  We don't even have to tell them that they are hackers
> > > (although that helps).  They will figure it out on their own.  After
> > > all, they are hackers.
> > >
> > > We can't really that easily help the dude who is hacking his
> > > toothbrush into a shank in solitary lockdown.  We don't need to.
> > > Well, we do.  Fuck, we do.  But there aren't as many of us as there
> > > are prison guards, keeping him in there.  Maybe if there were more
> > > hackers we could figure out how to hack the prison industrial complex.
> > > Fortunately, there are a bunch of extra hackers, among us right now,
> > > walking all around us, and not even knowing they are hackers.
> > >
> > > At least twice as many.
> > >
> > > We don't even have to spring them from prison.
> > >
> > > We don't even have to fly to India to visit them.
> > >
> > > We just have to stop telling them they are not hackers.
> > >
> > > Did you know that every time someone who is openly female contributes
> > > to the linux kernel she gets explicit harassing messages from a
> > > particular individual?  I found that out this past week.  Sigh, yawn,
> > > how terrible and annoying and I didn't do it and I didn't get those
> > > messages so why should I care?
> > >
> > > It's costing us half our hackers, friend.
> > >
> > > Jesse Z said explicitly on Tuesday that the reason he has been
> > > harassing me is because he doesn't think I'm a hacker.  I came to
> > > noisebridge to find collaborators and technical advice and equipment
> > > for my open source interface project.  I project managed a
> > > consensus-based website build for OWS which was kind of like herding
> > > cats in the middle of a riot. I've taught scores of artists how to use
> > > wiki to manage shared projects.  I'm a fucking hacker.  I actually
> > > founded a sewing/art hackspace in Oakland thankyouvery much, where a
> > > group of us pool our resources to create and maintain a space for
> > > creative use of technology, and a set of tools for the sustainable
> > > creation of micro-climate pods that enable humans to settle areas
> > > outside of their narrow evolutionary band.  Pretty cool, huh?  What
> > > tech is that?  Clothes.  I'm a fucking hacker.
> > >
> > > Why do I even have to defend my hackerness in this message?  I don't,
> > > actually. I am confident in my social standing as a hacker badass in
> > > this community.  Or not, whatever.  You don't have to like me.  Just
> > > get out of my way.  So why am I even defending myself in this message?
> > >  Because when someone calls up a shitty piece of software that's
> > > running on my cloud, I am forced to run it too.  Even when it says
> > > things that my local software knows are bullshit.  The cloud knows
> > > better, man.  You are running what it fucking tells you or you can't
> > > even use the damn internet.
> > >
> > > So,
> > >
> > > Until we live in a society that does not exclude women from technology
> > > spaces, anytime we want to be in technology spaces we are shaped by
> > > that absence.  Those of us who are paying attention will be the ones
> > > waving our arms and going "hey this dude's a fucking creep" and by
> > > fucking creep we mean "excluding scores of potential hackers through
> > > wildly antisocial behavior".  Those of you who are not paying
> > > attention to the way that technology spaces are shaped by the absence
> > > of women are still being affected by it.  You're the ones wondering
> > > why I don't want to talk to you while I am trying to get work done.
> > > It's because I have to constantly deflect vaguely sexual attention to
> > > even be in public.  No, I am not being melodramatic.  When I walk down
> > > the street I have my backpack on and am walking all purposeful and the
> > > way I dress looks like a dude from far away.  I don't wear a lot of
> > > little dresses.  Why do you think that is?  i look good in a little
> > > dress, too.  In a space like Noisebridge, where we all have our guard
> > > down a little bit more, it seems socially acceptable to come over and
> > > interrupt what I am doing to demand that I tell you about it... but in
> > > that moment my choice is do my work, or entertain you.  I'm happy to
> > > chat, I love people, so sometimes this is ok.  How can you tell when
> > > it is ok or not?  There are systems that we use culturally to keep us
> > > from killing each other.  When they mismatch a little, it's annoying
> > > and i am sending social cues that you are ignoring, and you are
> > > sending social cues that I don't like. When they mismatch a lot,
> > > sometimes that is categorized as rape.   Oh, and also sometimes people
> > > are dicks.
> > >
> > > So let's be clear about how people are supposed to behave in public at
> > > noisebridge, and then be firm about people who aren't doing that.  Not
> > > because we are not all beautiful little snowflakes with a right to act
> > > however we choose (we are!) but because of triage.  The chilling
> > > effect of one harassing individual over many months is pronounced - it
> > > costs us many potential hackers.  We are committed to radical
> > > inclusivity, and acknowledge that all humans deserve community, even
> > > those with whom we do not agree.  That doesn't mean we need to let
> > > them shit in our punchbowl or hog all the punch.  We can tell them to
> > > stop drinking the punch before they drown in the bile of their own
> > > chronic liver failure.  They probably won't stop until we take the
> > > damn punch bowl away, and we'll feel like an asshole for taking it
> > > away, but at least that way a couple other people can have punch too.
> > >
> > > Do we need felony assault charges to tell us someone is being a dick?
> > > Do we use the court system to arbitrate who is allowed in our space?
> > > No.  We are smarter than that BS, right?  That's the system that put
> > > all those hackers in jail in the first place.
> > >
> > > I am adopting a version of the http://adainitiative.org/ policy - it
> > > explicitly defines a behavioral standard so that everyone knows what
> > > is expected of them.  Their research (on tech conferences in
> > > particular) indicated:
> > >     Often, the person doing the groping or harassing honestly believed
> > > that their behavior was acceptable for the venue. Just as often, many
> > > other people went on record agreeing with them.
> > >     People who saw these incidents didn’t know how to respond to these
> > > incidents or weren’t sure who to report them to.
> > >     Conference organizers sometimes didn’t learn about an incident
> > > until long after it happened. When they did find out in time to take
> > > action, they often didn’t know how to respond to the incident.
> > >
> > > Below is my first draft, 2 simple sentences.  Feel free to suggest
> > > changes.  For this to work in our community it needs to be widely
> > > supported.  I expect some of you to mock the fact that I feel a need
> > > to write this very serious email.  For all of you who wish you didn't
> > > have to take this so seriously, well, so do I.  You just have a choice
> > > about it.  I don't.  And that, in a nutshell, is privilege.
> > >
> > > Harassment includes offensive verbal comments [related to gender,
> > > sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race,
> > > religion, housing status[your specific concern here]], deliberate
> > > intimidation, stalking, following, inappropriate physical contact, and
> > > unwelcome sexual attention. Participants asked to stop any harassing
> > > behavior are expected to do so immediately.
> > >
> > > R.
> > >
> > > Further reading - I really enjoyed reading this review about
> > > transformative justice:
> > > http://uppingtheanti.org/journal/article/13-work-transform/
> > > It says:
> > > Transformative justice is about community transformation, not
> > > retribution. While it can be cathartic to treat people who cause harm
> > > as “monsters” who need to be “punished,” proponents of transformative
> > > justice argue that we should develop skills to compassionately support
> > > perpetrators. The goal is to help perpetrators take responsibility for
> > > their actions without enabling or minimizing their abusive behaviour,
> > > and also learn to transform the social conditions that supported the
> > > abuse in the first place.
> > >
> > >
> > > Oh, and here's a bonus.
> > >
> http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/07/25/online-tracker-led-rapist-to-his-victim/
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
> > > Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> > > https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> >
> > ------------------------
> > Liz Henry
> > liz at bookmaniac.org
> > http://bookmaniac.org
> >
> > "Without models, it's hard to work; without a context, difficult to
> > evaluate; without peers, nearly impossible to speak." -- Joanna Russ
> > _______________________________________________
> > Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
> > Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> > https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
> >
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