Community Agreement
General
We follow the Contributor Covenant and the Recurse Center social rules. It is likely that we will modify the Contributor Covenant slightly in the future to suit our particular needs, by consensus.
In general, we strive for moderation to be done in a peer-to-peer way. If someone's behaviour makes you uncomfortable, bring it up directly with them, or find a third party you trust to relay the message and/or mediate. If you receive feedback about your behaviour, stop and reflect on it, and take it to heart. If you cannot productively engage with someone, don't engage with them. If someone asks you not to engage with them, respect that.
Some spaces (Zulip channels/topics/etc) have social norms that are different from the broader social norms of the space. For example, in channels where topics are strongly associated with a particular person (e.g. #consciousness, channels where each topic is for a specific person's project, etc), that person can set what subjects are and are not allowed in that topic (within the existing rules set by the Contributor Covenant). Some channels may be for discussion of a particular topic where some ideological agreement is assumed — for example, a #veganism channel is not a place to argue about animal agriculture being good for the environment, and a #unions channel is not a place for arguing about "right-to-work" laws being good.
We will not share non-harassing messages that people wrote in the community more widely than the initial audience that message had without the explicit consent of the person who wrote the message.
Our agreements can and should be modified by consensus among the community.
We will not let these rules get in the way of caring for each other and the community.
Handling Conflict
As a general rule, conflict should be handled in a peer-to-peer way, as noted above. This means being direct about your boundaries, proactively stepping up when you see misunderstandings or frustrations developing between members of the community, and seeking out mediation when needed. While we hope that most disputes can be resolved through this process, it is important to have something to fall back on in cases where such a system does not work, especially in cases of abuse or harassment. In order to handle these cases, we will have a “mediation committee” which is responsible for helping to resolve conflict which was not successfully resolved via other means, and which has the power to, by consensus among the active committee members, remove people from the community.
The main role of the mediation committee is to be a resource for members who want assistance in resolving conflicts. When approached by community members who are involved in a conflict, the active committee members will talk to the people involved, try to help the community members talk with each other, and attempt to come up with a resolution that all parties can agree to. If no such agreement can be reached, the moderation committee has the option of, by consensus among the active committee members, removing people from the community, either temporarily or indefinitely. Should anyone be removed from the community, the mediation committee will provide a explanation to the community of who was removed and why (while being mindful of any relevant privacy concerns), and, in cases where it is reasonable to do so, will allow the person being removed from the community to post a goodbye message/download a archive of their messages/etc.
Anyone who is interested in becoming a member of the mediation committee can express interest. Members of the community will have two weeks (likelty to be increased in the future) to comment with any concerns they may have. If no concerns have been raised in two weeks, or if all concerns raised have been addressed, the volunteer will be added to the mediation committee. Existing mediation committee members may be removed by the consensus of all other mediation committee members.
At any given time, 3 to 5 members of the mediation committee will be the “active members,” who will be responsible for handling any incoming requests. The active members of the mediation committee will be chosen randomly from the pool of committee members every month. If a active member has a conflict of interest with a matter that comes to the committee, they will recuse themselves, and another committee member will be randomly selected to take their place.