An open letter
Michele Kipiel
Public
Seen by 70
Dear fellow members,
the events that unfolded over the past few days have put our cooperative to the test, and we failed miserably.
Many voices calling for change were silenced in the past, be it by negligence or by sheer lack of commitment by those, whose position of privilege allowed to disregard such calls. By failing to listen, we became the people MLK warned us about: the white moderates who are more devoted to order than to justice.
We wasted precious time and energy in endless debates about trivial details, calling for the creation of ever new committees and processes, and we eventually lost sight of the only true reason our cooperative came to existence: to wrestle control of our social media out of the hands of the rich, white, capitalist elite.
I am writing this letter to extend my personal apologies to all the people who felt betrayed by our failure and to promise them I am here to put my energy, time, skills and reputation on the line to repair this institution and turn it into a place where they will be safe again. A place for them to call home.
But promises are not enough. Words, however strong or emotional, are but empty utterances if they are not followed by swift, honest, transparent action guided by total commitment. And, with your help, I intend to trigger a new course that will shake social.coop at the foundations and turn it into something we will be proud of for years to come.
First of all, I invite all those who revel in relativistic attitudes towards racism, sexism, homo/trans-phobia and any other form of bigotry to instantly leave the cooperative and never come back. You are not welcome, and you will never be.
Second, I propose we close down registrations for all the time it will take us to heal our cooperative. This might sound like an aggresive move, but I believe it’s the only reasonable thing to do in this diffucult moment. A joint statement will replace our homepage for the time the instance will be closed, to inform people about our struggle to improve.
Third, we will follow the advice of those fellow members who chose to weather the storm with us despite being part of those groups we failed to protect in the first place. I will not name names here, but if you have been involved in the chat, you know who I am talking about.
We shall reboot the cooperative with a core group of collaborators, deliberately chosen, and not all white men. I invite all men, including myself, to take a back seat in this process unless explicitly asked by the core group.
We shall make sure we have social infrastructure in place for handling conflict and abuse before launch, including a rock-solid code of conduct that will state our absolute rejection of any form of hate speech, racism, bigotry and *phobia front and center.
We shall grow our core user base deliberately, in small groups, and attempt to tap more diverse networks, to combat the network effects that brought social.coop on the brink of collapse
We shall make sure all the skills and resources needed to maintain the organization are in place from the start and focus on sustainability. We can never find ourselves again in the situation where a single member leaving or being overwhelmed with external responsibilities exposes the instance to the risk of downtime, poor performance or sluggish maintenance.
We will make sure at least one of the core collaborators is an experienced community manager, with previous experience handling diverse, international communities across many timezones.
I chose to stay because I believe we can do much, much better than we did so far, and because I am deeply committed to the idea of platform cooperativism as a means to achieve liberation, justice and equality for all.
At the same time I am painfully aware that my position of absolute privilege, which I am granted under the current capitalist partiarchy, puts me at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to understading the needs of those who are oppressed by the same system.
My position in the new social.coop will therefore be that of an enthusiastic contributor and ally to those who will be part of the core group and nothing more, unless explicitly asked for, as intellectual honesty demands I give up any position in which I could wield even the slightest bit of power.
With respect, hope and unchanged enthusiasm,
MK
EDIT 02/09/18: replaced "take the instance off-line" with "close down registrations" as many members reported it was misleading and suggested we were going to shut down completely.
Matthew Cropp Sun 2 Sep 2018 3:31PM
The Community Working Group has a call scheduled for today at 7:30pm EDT that was originally planned for the purpose of developing the selection process for the Community Working Group Ops Team.
In light of Michele's tentative proposals above, a key question is whether we should continue with trying to get the Ops Team in place in parallel to the re-foundation process, or if it should be put on hold until the "core group of collaborators" is established, and empower them to form the ops team.
My concern about the latter approach is that it will continue to leave me holding much of the role by default for an indefinite period of time, and I'm feeling urgency around getting a broad, diverse, and sustainable (due to being compensated) team to carry the work going forward. I'm willing to remain in a holding pattern if there is a strong feeling that we need to wait for the re-boot, but I think that, if we develop a process for team formation that is aligned with this proposal, the co-op will be better served by getting this group together ASAP.
To be discussed on the call, but the process that I'm thinking about right now, which might also work for the "core group of collaborators" formation is as follows:
- Elect a small group (~5) who are not interested in serving on the ops team as a "selection committee" that is charged with soliciting applications and assembling the founding team, with a strong diversity requirement (something with the effect of ensuring that the founding ops team must not have a majority of cis white guys).
- "Selection Committee" submits their recommended slate of founding members to the CWG for ratification.
- Upon ratification, Ops Team takes over essential scope of responsibilities for rotating moderation, on-boarding when it is re-opened, etc.
muninn Sun 2 Sep 2018 11:20PM
Please, no waiting to make an ops team, just keep the one that took so long to assemble. ><
Matthew Cropp Sun 2 Sep 2018 8:03PM
After some conversations, I've taken a first swing at some rough draft language for a proposal to implement this. Hoping to discuss on the call tonight, but also welcome any feedback here:
This proposal authorizes the creation of a team of [x] social co-op members that will be fully empowered to make unilateral decisions concerning all aspects of social.coop, including modifying or replacing its bylaws, for a six month period. The team is tasked overseeing operations and building out the necessary policies and infrastructure to put the co-op on sound footing in alignment with the Co-op Principles at the time of the expiration of its mandate.
The team shall be selected by an elected “selection committee” consisting of [x] co-op members who do not themselves intend to offer to serve on the “Reboot Team,” and who will be elected via approval voting. The selection committee will solicit candidates for seats on the Team, and will be empower to appoint its members. The selection committee is required to prioritize diversity in selection, and may not select a committee in which any constellation of two or more [is this the right approach? The right #?] of the following identity characteristics is in the majority: race, gender identity, sexual orientation, nationality [others?].
Matthew Cropp Sun 2 Sep 2018 8:05PM
I'd also want to include some language on the compensation of the team - we don't have a large amount of resources, but this work is critical and deserves something. 7 members x $25/mo x 6 mo shakes out to $1025, which is a touch less than a quarter of our current reserve. Should we go higher? Should the team be smaller?
Matt Noyes Sun 2 Sep 2018 8:51PM
The new bylaws, etc. would be approved by the new membership, right?
Michele Kipiel Mon 3 Sep 2018 12:35PM
Totally with you on this one. I believe the mods and the tech team taking care of the instance should be the first to obtain regular compensation for their hard work!
Matt Noyes Sun 2 Sep 2018 8:49PM
We should always be ready to scrap what we have and regenerate it. Thanks, Michele and others for putting it on the table. It seems to me we could proceed on two fronts at the same time:
1) existing ops teams/moderator/working groups continue in minimal mode -- just keeping the lights on (including moving to new servers) -- while
2) the re-generation committee creates a new interim structure (bylaws, organization, membership, etc.). When the new organization is established -- its members will have to vote on the bylaws, structure, etc., just like in the formation of any democratic organization. As soon as the new organization is established, the old organization ceases to exist.
Edward L Platt Sun 2 Sep 2018 11:43PM
@michelekipiel Can you elaborate or give some examples of voices being silenced or relativist attitudes towards bigotry? I care very much about using mastodon for social justice rather than against it, so I'm trying to better understand the situation. I've spent a lot of time reading through loomio and the local timeline, and all of the discussion I've seen has been very abstract. What exactly happened?
Michele Kipiel Mon 3 Sep 2018 12:34PM
It would be too long and painful to recap all that happened, please forgive me if I don't feel like doing it now. Sorry!
Neville Park · Sun 2 Sep 2018 12:05AM
Thanks for writing this. I think you've put into words the dismay and frustration a lot of us have been feeling.
I wish I had spoken up louder and earlier about things that made me uncomfortable, and advocated more strongly for things I believed but thought were "too radical" for this community. I wish I had done a better job of supporting fellow members who became alienated.
I would like to try again as well.