Code of Conduct for HSG related chats and groups (and possibly space)

[geekyjoyce72]

Do we have a Code of Conduct for HackerspaceSG related chats, groups and perhaps even the space itself?

I was messaged by someone, who claims to have been in the space before and was asked for really sensitive information (such as age, sex, etc), for which sole purpose seems to me to be to find someone to talk about sensitive topics such as sex (said person needed a few pointers to know that I wouldn't, nor most other folk would be comfortable talking about this topic to strangers)

According to @valentine the Telegram group chats are public and anyone can see the member lists without joining the group directly. As such I am asking:

• Do we already have a Code of Conduct for the space and its related chats and groups?
• If not, would it not be prudent to define a Code of Conduct?

[GIANTCRAB]

Who is this person and are they a member? This will need to be dealt with / mediated. I agree that any forms of harassment has no place in HSG.

However, the conversation happened between you and the said person in a separate chat / private email, I am unsure of the correlation of this matter to the need of HSG needing a CoC. Anyone could create a Telegram account or email address, have one account to monitor the public chat/mailing list and another account to privately harass the list of Telegram accounts or email addresses. The best action henceforth, would be to block / ignore said account.

My 2 cents: a CoC would imply that members are incapable of judgement and choice of speech, which also means that there is a fundamental issue with onboarding or filtering of potential members. I would understand the need of this if it was a completely open community physical space where there are no filtering or mechanism in place to gate participation, ie: meetups. A lot of CoC also gives a false sense of social security. Blizzard Activision, Riot (League of Legends) and many companies has a CoC, often for publicity purposes. They are the same companies that are the worst offenders of harassment at workplace. Social security should come from members monitoring other members and taking necessary actions; not just an arbitrary set of rules. If our members cannot take actions, a CoC would not evolve the culture of a place to suddenly start taking action. Problems with rules, as said by Plato, is that rules are not needed by the good people and the bad people will always try to find ways around it. Even with a CoC, harassment can still take place and members can still be complicit and not take action.

However, if it is determined by members that we do need a CoC, we could potentially explore Interfaces during plenums.

[geekyjoyce72]

It does not seems like they are a member. I do not know the actual identity of said person, although I have forwarded @valentine details of said chat and specifics.

[GIANTCRAB]

Are there any updates on this?

Thanks!

[GIANTCRAB]

Closing this since there wasn't any response. Please re-open if needed.

[valentine]

Some members have sent me private feedback that some recent behaviour by a fellow member might border on unacceptable to how they believe the space's norms to be, so it might be prudent that we adopt and enforce a Code of Conduct soon.

What we're looking for is not a generic anti-harassment policy, but some best practices for behaviour and interaction between members while in the space.

Noisebridge's Community Standards entry might be a good place to start.

[valentine]

Copying over relevant messages from Telegram:

J21, [27/6/22 1:40 PM]

I agree that it is quite inappropriate to ask something indecent except general topics like security issues or computer problems related to hackerspace sg. 🙏🏻

Joyce Ng (@geekyjoyce72), [27/6/22 2:32 PM]
[In reply to Valentine]

I think this should be an item for discussion on the plenum
and a separate meeting be held if necessary
but this is where I am going to not hold back - I don't mean any offense, but I won't hold my words back and I apologize if anyone finds this rude, or if they think I overlooked something that people were doing but I didn't realize
For context
I opened this issue last September because I received unsolicited messages from someone who joined this chat last year - asking for things such as my age, talking about sexual themes, etc
I forwarded Val some of the chat messages at the time
I understand that the Hackerspace is supposed to be member led and member driven
It seems to me that we're still somehow just trying to get the community to chip in some ideas etc for a code of conduct
in fact, if I remember correctly, during the last plenum it was suggested that I might even take the lead in contributing to a proposed CoC since I opened the issue myself
I am going to go all out now and say that it seems a little tad backwards to me
Like - while I might be able to contribute something, yes; I am literally appealing to people in administrative positions to actually think about what's up, and how we're going to improve etc
I think that this is something that the people with powers of administration such as directors, etc has to sit down and think about
at least in terms of what sort of community we wish to encourage, and what we think should be appropriate

Gordon, [27/6/22 2:43 PM]

https://www.wrike.com/blog/how-to-write-employee-code-of-conduct/#How-to-write-a-code-of-conduct
something along these lines perhaps ^

Joyce Ng, [27/6/22 2:44 PM]

I don't know - it kinda feels like we're just passing the buck/burden of actually thinking about these issues to other people or even back to the persons who originally suffered the inappropriate behavior

Gordon, [27/6/22 2:45 PM]

Forgive the dumb question - not a member of HSG, but does HSG have a leadership board or something of that sort?

Joyce Ng, [27/6/22 2:45 PM]

as far as I understand it should be flat-line hierarchy, but for legal purposes there are directorship positions

Huiren Woo (@GIANTCRAB), [27/6/22 2:46 PM]

Nope, all members are supposedly leaders

Joyce Ng, [27/6/22 2:48 PM]
[In reply to Joyce Ng]

which is why I specifically use the term administrative positions
instead of leadership, as we are supposed to be a flatline hierarchy
well, as close as we can make it be

Gordon, [27/6/22 2:53 PM]

some suggestions for members to work off/add to/remove:

1. Please keep speech civil in the channel. No harrassment, sexism, racism, or hate speech will be tolerated.
2. Criticizing the ideas !== criticizing the person. Please refrain from making personal attacks on members
3. Please do not post any malicious links in the channel. Discussion about malicious content (viruses, worms, exploits) are allowed though.
4. Please do not spam.
5. Please don't ask to ask - just ask the question straight!
   [adapted from a Discord server I'm in.] Again, I'm not a member, so I don't have much (if any!) say in this space, but probably best to draft something out, instead of deciding whether to even start it or not.

Jash, [27/6/22 2:54 PM]
[In reply to Gordon]

This is a very good start. Also short and simple to remember

Chinmay Pendharkar (@notthetup), [27/6/22 2:54 PM]

Harder question, how is it to be implemented?

Joyce Ng, [27/6/22 2:55 PM]

^ yeah the thing is that how do we enforce it?

Jash, [27/6/22 2:56 PM]

Points 1,3,4 can be taken care of in discord easily. 2 is always tricky

Gordon, [27/6/22 2:56 PM]

well the tele group does have some admins right? Those can enforce it i guess. I agree with Jash though, moving to somewhere like Discord opens up a whole new realm of moderation (or automod for that matter)

Marco Cecconi, [27/6/22 2:57 PM]

not a member but, 2 things every sensible coc must have:

1. what to do in case of breach (who to contact if victim, how to deal with reports)
2. an actual practice of enforcing it (penalties & active moderators)

yf, [27/6/22 2:58 PM]
[In reply to Marco Cecconi]

Another thing tho is that the moderators cant be abusive themselves i guess

Gordon, [27/6/22 2:59 PM]
[In reply to Joyce Ng]

[redacted by V] now has a very strict moderation system, which isn't too bad I find. But it's down to one or a few key people to decide

Marco Cecconi, [27/6/22 2:59 PM]
[In reply to yf]

like any other user, but as moderators they should have different rules to abide
e.g "how to deal with reports" is a moderator-only part of the CoC

Joyce Ng, [27/6/22 4:59 PM]

Actually having some form of CoC and how/who enforces these CoC?
I will also say
as to the vigilantism question - this is where I say that there's a distinction between the letter of law (what a policy says in its text)
and what the intent were relevant laws or policies created
in terms of a community CoC
we should consider what the intent is, and not just the letter of law
but we can only consider that
IF we have a sense of what sort of community we want to build
which goes back to "What do we want hackerspace to be? What are our goals?"
I will also say that we are too permissive
And we let a lot of things slip
Cause "people are joking and mean no harm"
Ignoring that even jokes can sometimes be harmful

icedwater (he/him) (@icedwater), [27/6/22 5:35 PM]

Fully agree
Even with people you know fairly well, it can be hard to get boundaries right. And jokes tend to cross boundaries by definition...

Joyce Ng, [27/6/22 5:38 PM]

And as mentioned earlier
"criticizing the idea != criticizing the person"
It's also possible to call people out for inappropriate behavior without necessarily being against a person
We are all people - you, me, everyone can drop the ball from time to time and do things that aren't appropriate
The goal imo is to call someone out for such behavior without it turning into a lynch mob/vigilanteism thing

Rhizomatic Thoughts, [27/6/22 5:50 PM]
[In reply to Joyce Ng]

Supposing this is a working CoC of sorts, we can actually practice it right now.
@valentinec and leadership, sorry to force your hand, but might I ask what you’d do about the unfortunate harassment we all were subjected to earlier?
Enforcing it is always the hard part, coming up with CoC is the easy part. Yep.

Joyce Ng, [27/6/22 5:58 PM]

And also - given that the theme behind the hackerspace is very technology related
and also given that minority groups (such as women) are underrepresented in tech
how do we create an environment that's safe for minority groups and underrepresented populations?

Joyce Ng, [27/6/22 6:33 PM]
[In reply to Joyce Ng]

My apologies - I made an error
so said person found me via this group
but they didn't join the chat itself - the group member list is public
but given that said person in our copies of the chat logs claimed to have come here before, I don't think my points about having some CoC are negated

[valentine]

I've drafted a Code of Conduct. Please feel free to bikeshed here:

Code of Conduct (WIP)

If there's one rule you should remember: please be considerate towards other participants in our community.

We don't ask for excellence or kindness, though those attributes are desirable when participating in our community. However, participants of the physical hackerspace and its channels of communication should consider the time, efforts, and feelings of other potential users in their use of the space and interaction with others.

If you believe that some behaviour is unacceptable, please feel free to call it out. If you are not comfortable doing so, please communicate your discomfort to another HackerspaceSG member, or to our administration.

If you are a recipient of any feedback regarding your behaviour, please take it gracefully and in good faith.

HackerspaceSG is further committed towards providing a safe, harassment-free experience for everyone. We have zero tolerance for threats of bodily harm to others, and aspire to swiftly exclude such individuals from participating in our community, as well as report them to law enforcement if appropriate.

Note that we try to be inclusive when it comes to differences of opinion and personal values. Societal norms take time to change and progress; we ask that participants of the space consider that others may have grown up in more conservative cultures and times, and may not be as socially progressive as they are.

HackerspaceSG is not an activist organisation, nor do we condone breaking the law. If we believe that your behaviour or activities may implicate our organisation or its officers in any criminal or legal trouble, you may be required to stop using our physical space or participate in any of our communication channels.

We strive to allow as many members and users to enjoy use of the space as possible. However, as a struggling, volunteer-only, not-for-profit organisation, we regret that we may be unable to accommodate individuals whose behaviour, conscious or otherwise, is disruptive to a large number of other users of the space, or whose requests are beyond our limited volunteer time or financial capability to accommodate.

(p.s. note that this should be read in conjunction with our House Rules (which also needs an update))

[serverwentdown]

The line on enforcement only applies to illegal activities. We should extend the enforcement to other disruptive behaviour, explaining in detail (ban, stop participation...) instead of just saying "unable to accommodate"

[notthetup]

@serverwentdown Agreed, but how would that get implemented?

Thinking aloud :

Someone can be banned from a virtual channel/group, but they can always create a new handle and join back in. It's might end up being cat/mouse game forever. This just means more load on administrators. (P.S. not a made-up scenario, AFAIK this happened in one of the cases)

Also, how does one ban someone from a physical location? That would have to involve law enforcement?

[serverwentdown]

Importantly, the CoC should mention consequences for disruptive behaviour. Implementation wise, there's many options for the various contexts. Here's one for Telegram:

• Vote to kick, like using this bot: https://t.me/banofbot

And yes, physical banning would be hard. I guess putting up a photo of them on the inner side of the door could be a way to ensure repeated attempts of entry would be blocked. But we shouldn't have to resort to this usually.

Such procedures should be documented in a Grievance Procedure

[valentine]

I mentioned this at yesterday's plenum: the biggest difference between events (meetups, conferences) and community/co-working spaces like HackerspaceSG is that in a community space, it's very likely that grievances don't stem from one or two large incidents, but little annoyances that build up over time (possibly some of the disruptive behaviour that @serverwentdown is bringing up).

In those cases, it seems like the best way forward is to make sure that the acceptable norms for space usage are somewhat codified and known among everyone (e.g. saying that the front room should be like a library), and to ask that the parties go through mediation.

@notthetup:

Also, how does one ban someone from a physical location? That would have to involve law enforcement?

Sounds about right.

[serverwentdown]

Also, we should have separate CoCs (or separate CoC sections) for online and physical to make things clear.

[geekyjoyce72]

I cleaned up and edited a CoC which I wrote for another community. This is non-specific to online or offline situations and can be adapted easily:

---

HackerspaceSG is Singapore's very own Hackerspace, where people with common interests in computers, technology, science, digital and electronic art, come together to meet, socialise and collaborate.

We do not believe in creating strict rules governing the community, as people can and will find means to skirt around the language of the rules. As such, there are no formalized rules in place for the community, but there are guidelines that members should follow, and are listed below:

Guidelines:

1. Don't ask to ask - just ask!
   This should be something that everyone should read and take into mind: https://sol.gfxile.net/dontask.html
   No one here is psychic and can read your mind. So with that in mind, when asking questions, tell us:

• What is the problem you're dealing with
• What have you already tried
• What you're hoping to achieve
• Any specific device or configuration information (if applicable)

If you're not going to put in the effort to properly describe what's going on, and what's up with a circuit, a system, etc, give information about the devices at hand, then why should anyone spend the time and effort to answer your question?

2. No one is ANYONE's 24/7 personal engineer
   People here who participate in discussions and answer questions do it on their own free time and will, and do not get paid at all for their time here; this includes the administrators. Please do not message any specific person(s) unless they are comfortable and able to spend that time with you to help you with your question.

3. Civil and respectful conduct
   Please conduct yourself in a reasonable and respectful manner. A good rule of thumb is that if you wouldn't conduct yourself or say certain things in a public place and in person, you shouldn't conduct yourself in that way here as well.

We are committed towards providing a safe, harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of sex, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, religion, housing status, or language. We do not tolerate harassment of members or participants in any form.

Harassers or abusive persons can be expelled from the space or removed from any online forums or means of communication.

4. Avoid talking about dubious or illegal activities
   This should be self-explanatory. If you're doing something illegal or dubious - you'd do best to not discuss or talk about them here. The Hacker Culture is especially NOT about the use of knowledge and tools to maliciously break into computer systems or to use them for malicious intent. Coming in with a question like: "How do I hack into x's computer system" is likely going to get you shunned in this community.

Moderation and Enforcement:
We trust that all admins are reasonable people and will conduct themselves and use their powers in a reasonable manner.

Admins have the right to break up any conversation or topic that goes against the spirit of these guidelines, even if something is not explicitly covered in these guidelines. They also reserve the right to silence, kick and permanently ban any member that is not being conducive to the community.

If an admin tells you to cease talking about something or doing an action; please respect their authority and stop. If you have any questions or concerns that you wish to bring up, talk to an admin.

Members and participants are also encouraged to call out inappropriate or abusive behaviors.

With these guidelines - we hope that you have a pleasant time on this community, and happy hacking! 🙂

---

Any comment or thoughts in regards to this?

[valentine]

@geekyjoyce72 Lack of enforcement guidelines aside, what specifically are you not satisfied with from the CoC that I drafted?

[geekyjoyce72]

I actually don't have any specific things that I am not satisfied in regards to your draft - I was just talking to some other folks and thought I could put in one so that other people can get ideas and add their own comments too