#Building anti-racist moderation policies for ma pona

2208 messages · Page 3 of 3 (latest)

upper drift
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it is impossible to overuse

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as a baby mod, I can say it does nothing but show us what was said and where and ping us

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so like. if someone says or does something racist, you can just push this button and anonymously report it

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(anonymously to the rest of the server. we still see who reports it)

hasty briar
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@tender sentinel o · toki! sina sitelen ala sitelen e toki lon lipu ni · ona li pona mute li sona mute

cursive salmonBOT
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You were called racist—what now?

Follow the steps of RATTECSS

• Research what you did that was racist until you understand why it was racist. Do not ask the nearest non-white person to explain your actions to you. Understand that calling out racism is an exhaustive labor that non-white people perform, often without gratitude and with a significant risk of violent retaliation.

• Apologize to the people and groups affected by your actions. Take time to form your apology and make sure you understand the impacts of your actions. Do not give meaningless apologies.

• Take steps to ensure that you do not commit the racist offense/action again. This may look different depending on what you did that was racist.

• Think about how you react. Often times when white people are called racist, they express their emotions about it in a harmful way called white tears. This is a facet of white fragility and is exhausting for non-white people to deal with. Consider taking time to process your emotions before you respond.

• Evaluate your positions of privilege that have allowed you to harbor racist ideas. Racism is both personal and systemic, meaning racist ideas can be and are unconsciously engrained by society. Even if you believe you are not racist, you may still harbor racial bias or be unaware of racism in your communities.

• Confront racism and white privilege when you see it. The labor of confronting racism is placed on the shoulders of non-white people, and this is both exhausting and dangerous. To be actively anti-racist, you must become comfortable with confronting racism in your communities.

• Share education about racism with people you know.

• Support non-white people. Non-white people need material and emotional support to deal with and confront racism in our daily lives. You can help by lending an ear, or giving money directly to non-white people.

#2d45a4 racistnext

tender sentinel
hasty briar
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a wawa · sina sitelen e ona tan lawa sina taso anu seme

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sina kama ala jo e sitelen ni tan lipu ante anu seme

tender sentinel
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kon pi sitelen ni li kon mi ala. taso la, sitelen ni li tan lawa mi taso.

hasty briar
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wawa a 🤩 sina ken sitelen pona a

wary spindle
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"rattecss" is not the best of acronyms lol
good concept tho

upper drift
upper drift
wary spindle
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raptecsu

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funny word

upper drift
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share --> educate?

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raptecses

supple mantle
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if the note just said "think rat attics!" - RATTECSS
or something it would work

hard shadowBOT
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i think having it make an acronym is a bit unnecessary ._.
just put the items on a list yk

wary spindle
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yeah

calm oak
upper drift
hasty briar
supple mantle
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ken suli la ona li kepeken "taso la" sama "taso" pi "la" ala

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ni li nasa ala

upper drift
upper drift
slate orbit
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li kepeken ona sama ni • ‘mi ni taso li ijo ante ala’ • ‘taso la mi ni’

lunar quarry
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rattecss is a good acronym. i like both rats and css

hard shadowBOT
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ratte is a fun way to spell rat

hasty briar
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what is tec then?

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Oh, apparently it's English slang for "detective"

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🐀 🕵🏽 css

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Lol, even though I only intended to joke about it, that actually made me remember the entire acronym now

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oh wait, there's only one C 😭

analog rain
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rat te css

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rat temporary employment cascading style sheets

hard shadowBOT
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rat て css

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conjunctive form

hasty briar
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apparently te is an obsolete form of the obscure nimisin word teje that is associated with the idea of the right-hand side of things

wary spindle
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te is also the open quote symbol

hasty briar
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well yeah

hard shadowBOT
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rat, and on the right side of rat, css

jan Suko ↩️

[Reply to:](#1088975581422551041 message) apparently te is an obsolete form of the obscure nimisin word teje …

hasty briar
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Does it feel like anything has changed? Or does it still feel as bad as ever?

image0.jpg
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Mostly since it references racism at the end

supple mantle
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I'm gonna be honest i feel like kama sona can be more lax on some of that stuff, or maybe rather it goes unnoticed

hasty briar
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Hm!

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That’s an interesting point that I haven’t considered but also I guess we won’t reach any goals of being antiracist by comparing ourselves with other servers

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Regardless of how kama sona handles things, is ma pona pi toki pona any better now or is lipamanka’s perspective still as valid as ever?

hard shadowBOT
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i dont rlly feel like much has been done recently to change stuff so
i feel it is still valid ._.

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but also i havent been around much lately so i might be wrong

hasty briar
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The mods have been encouraging and reminding each other to focus on protecting the community rather than giving the benefit of the doubt to a user that is saying the harmful things

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There are still times when mods feel uncertain about whether something is in scope for moderation, but there haven't been any big disagreements where mods' opinions are split between swiftly protecting the community and spending energy on attempting to educate the user that said harmful things.

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If there are any examples where even this assertion is questionable, I'd love to find out about them and reflect on them further

hard shadowBOT
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its best to mute them immediately and talk to them in a ticket to stop them from bothering other ppl i think

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has this been done

hasty briar
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That is almost always the first step, yes

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I think the only times that doesn't happen is if mods don't see it and it doesn't get reported, or if the mod isn't realizing that it's harmful as it's happening

hard shadowBOT
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yea,

hasty briar
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With the report_this_post_to_mods system, if it's unclear to a mod why a message was reported, they will not mute the person and will check in with whoever used the reaction first to better understand what was wrong with the post

hard shadowBOT
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cmute anusem,

hasty briar
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But I'll encourage mods to listen to other people in the channel if someone is explicitly suggesting that another post was racist

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Like if people start talking in Russian about racist stuff and there's no Russian-speaking mod online, but other users start saying that the message is racist, I'd want a mod to mute first, and then go use Google Translate or whatever to validate

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But yes, -cmute is good too

hard shadowBOT
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ye

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better safe than sorry

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wait

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yea ig this phrase works here

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better a false negative than a false positive

hasty briar
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exactly, especially since muting someone isn't the same as a ban with no possible recourse

lunar quarry
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i don't think someone speaking in a different language is actually a significant barrier to us moderating racism, or if it is idk if it's ever been an issue historically

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i think google translating is generally okay enough to tell when someone might be being a bigot

hard shadowBOT
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yeah

hasty briar
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Yeah but that requires using google translate on individual messages as they come in. Personally if I see people talking in a different language that I don't know, I usually ignore the conversation and go look at other channels unless I know in advance that it's about a topic I want to know about.

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But yeah if someone reports a message in a language I don't know it doesn't take long to pop it into Google Translate. But it could end up being that the one single message isn't clear, like let's say it just says, "they all do" and nothing else, so we have to figure out how far back to go and translate messages to see why that was report-worthy

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But actually selecting multiple messages and pasting them in bulk into Google Translate works just fine. Not sure why I had Haitian Creole selected here but this is how it comes out haha

image.png
lunar quarry
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based on my experience with people using other languages to hide racism, it's always been very explicit and not hard to translate

hexed lance
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fun fact! i actually have a copy of this in my downloads folder at all times and sometimes i open it up and remind myself of. what should be done
hows the work going for these docs. if any work h (maybe yous dont have enough time, idk sor)

cursive salmonBOT
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Successfully added alias mpptpracism to note #0151d8!

hasty briar
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So were these legendary "two documents" ever initialized or is that still a future action item?

lunar quarry
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I don't believe they were initialized. there were i think some beginnings of a draft, between me and kulupu telo mun

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i think i compiled like "minutes" of this channel a few times to make the entire discussion easier to read, and there has been a lot of good contribution from lots of people to go into such documents, but they were never written

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if anyone wanted a new effort to do that it might be good. my only other footnote is ilo Mimuki always has had good stuff to say about anti-racism here, but around the time of his ban, he had a bot script go thru and delete all of his/his system members' messages from the server for privacy reasons

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so there will be gaps in the convo if you wanna read it, keep that in mind. insofar as minutes were taken, his contributions should be preserved there i think

hexed lance
atomic nexus
lunar quarry
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i forget some of the details but after a mod was banned for admitting to allegations of sexual assault, ilo Mimuki was one of a few server members who essentially had multiple times lead protracted concern trolling discourse about the way the ban was handled, and in framing protection of victim privacy and anonymity as lack of transparency etc

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a few other server members were a part of this and idr exactly who said what so. i don't want to misattribute any details

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iirc it was specifically jade who made all or most of the problematic comments

atomic nexus
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Ah

hasty briar
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Maybe it should be more like

  1. At this time: Do not try to explain why you were doing the behavior. Do not try to explain that it was unintentional. Do this first:
  2. Confirm that you understand that they said you did something racist, and try to say something empathetic, since it was probably hard for them to call you out.
  3. Demonstrate that you're listening by checking if they would like to share anything else about how they feel and what they saw happen.
  4. Try to demonstrate that you understand the impact and that you can empathize with the hurt feeling.
  5. More items go here
lunar quarry
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idk i think the original post is good. im not sure how it pertains to long-term goals, it seems like mostly its points are all things one can and should do immediately after having racism pointed out

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steps like research, confront, share, support, i get the sense were put in the post to make sure anyone who's open minded towards evaluating their own behaviour critically and antiracistly has like. some teeth behind doing that.. these are steps that seem to me to be geared towards fixing the harm done by racism and being as productive an antiracist as possible in the wake of a fuckup

i think your steps reduce things entirely to the immediate isolated interaction and kinda like. damage controlling that

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which are important things to do, but i think that ive seen a lot of white advice about like. "doing the interaction of being called racist" correctly, and i think kulupu telo mun's post was well-thought out and maybe intending to differentiate itself from that kinda advice. and to like ask more of white people

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and like removing those steps for the sake of someone being inexperienced in being called racist is i think misguided.. there's a lot of white weaponized incompetence around antiracism and it's worth being cognizant of that. bending to it is an intended effect of structural racism, which wants to appropriate language of anti-racism but while asking less of white people until the anti-racism is neutered and ineffective and performative

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i know i am just ome more white person's opinions but kulupu telo mun has been invaluable to anti-racist discussion on this server (imo Alitsanosga has been the single most important voice in the time we've discussed anti-racism on this server), and i think it's misguided for a white person to try and innovate some of their advice by asking fewer things of white people without really adding anything, out of concern it's too much to ask

hasty briar
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I should have said additional sentences to make that clearer

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I just think it couldn’t hurt to also have a note about “damage control” as you put it. Unfortunately it probably wouldn’t all fit into the same note due to character limit. I’m coming from a conversation where the person wanted to know how they could have behaved better in the first moments instead of getting defensive and I wished that there was a note about it.

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The current note is very expansive and full of amazing advice but doesn’t address that specific question and I don’t think we have a different note that does

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But are you suggesting that creating such a separate note is not advisable? Perhaps because then this current note would get buried?

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Hm, re-reading the note again I think that probably is indeed the case. Maybe I was thrown off by the fact that “research” is the first item, I think “Apologize” should be first

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If someone gets called racist and immediately vanishes from the conversation (to do research) that could be a weird look

echo ether
hasty briar
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Yeah, I’d want them to say something

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“I hear you that I fucked up. I’m sorry I hurt you. Please give me some time to educate myself, I’ll be back soon”

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This should be kind of obvious I guess but we have a lot of children in the server that do better with clearer instructions

echo ether
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ye that's fair

hasty briar
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Okay so maybe like add this in first place so that the apology one can remain after research

  • Acknowledge verbally that people feel harmed by something you did, even if you don’t completely understand the problem yet.
echo ether
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i'd change "understand what happened yet" to "understand the issue yet"

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just to be a bit more clear

hasty briar
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problem over issue? Or is issue better

echo ether
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either works for me

supple mantle
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i like issue

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nnn maybe less in the sentence

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problem is good

hasty briar
supple mantle
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was just thinking in general "educate yourself on the issue/topic" and that issue can cover both the situation and the topic

hasty briar
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a sona

supple mantle
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jan Suko o you have been incredibly open to criticism and learning in general,and i think that also means it's easier to have those discussions with you (and therefor much easier for you to learn, and by extension others too). that's admirable imo

hexed lance
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lon a

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i was also thinking smth like
"the dingus who said the racist thing isnt gonna wanna do all of this"
but. thats what the system wants (me backing down to respectability)

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ilo Salinsen li toki wawa

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sor

atomic nexus
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I know why this was mentioned

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so uh

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I can vouch

hexed lance
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o toki a

hasty briar
atomic nexus
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we will need steps that are pretty clear about WHAT is an accusation of racism

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The reason why this was mentioned is (I presume) related to an issue I raised as an issue

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If you’re on the antiracism safespace, tou can tell what

hexed lance
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ye

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listening to the people who are actually affected and what they say is impostant

hasty briar
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The Think item is way too far down as well, that’s like the number one mistake in the very first reply of unaware people

hexed lance
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not just. for the person who did the Racist thing but the whole community

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bc. if the person who suffered racism isnt even emotionally able to say their truth then

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we go nowhere

hasty briar
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Yes

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Totally

hexed lance
hasty briar
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In fact I think I missed it in the list when I started off this whole conversation because it covers most of the items in my list at the beginning lol

hexed lance
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h

lunar quarry
# hasty briar I specifically said that they’re excellent to make sure it wouldn’t come across ...

yea ik you weren't suggesting like a "hard removal" but still i think the like, gently moving to shrink the context of the original note and to use something else in its place is i think not the best

the way i see it is that the "new" advice is what's wanting to be used in the actual context of a situation you encountered. while the old one is being relegated to a hypothetical context, which may or may not de facto be synonymous with "never"

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overall im not a huge fan of using notes for moderation (lon nasin mi taso) but as guidelines i do really like the old one

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the chronology could maybe use some work though, i suppose

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i agree that overall ghosting someone to do research is misguided, but doing a short and to the point apology of "sorry, thanks for letting me know. im going to stop and go do some more research about this first before i come back to it" is a good idea

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but the research is still a good thing to do very nearly upfront in the conversation

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overall i think all the steps kutemu gave are good and worth voicing in this kind of context. the strength of not using prewritten notes verbatim is you can always tailor things tastefully to the context of the situation, emphasizing what you you think is the most appropriate and expanding on what's relevant. i don't think it hurts though to share that little bit of extra context with them, even if it's not as deeply explained

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like in some situation where someone wants to know what they should do here and now, if apologizing and thinking are the most important things for the next ten minutes, then that's a good thing to expound on up front. lots of cases where this is the most important thing to get right right away

but i think it's always worth a brief addendum after about what they can do going forward. doesn't always need to be equally emphasized, but it doesn't need omitted either

hasty briar
lunar quarry
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yea i don't think they're bad per se and i do appreciate your moderation style of compiling everything into explicit written notes, it is a big asset to have things written down explicitly

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but for me, i find it more useful to use them as a reference than to just pull them up and paste em

hexed lance
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lon a

hasty briar
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Thanks for saying that! Sounds like “the middle way” is the best way once again 😁

upper drift
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so i've been trying to read more on digital blackface in order to understand what does vs doesn't count as it, and this part of Lauren Michele Jackson's article (the one that popularized the concept in 2017) was interesting to me

image.png
upper drift
upper drift
# lunar quarry i know i am just ome more white person's opinions but kulupu telo mun has been i...

asking fewer things of white people without really adding anything, out of concern it's too much to ask
i agree with this. i do however feel that the instructions we provide may be more effective if they are split into two sets of instructions: one to be given to people in the moment the incident occurred, and one to be followed thereafter when there is time for deeper introspection and research

hasty briar
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What if it had two sections or something
Do this immediately

  • Acknowledge …
    Next do as much of this as you can and keep coming back to it
  • Think …
  • Research …
  • Apologize …
  • etc.
upper drift
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this could work possibly

hasty briar
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And I think ilo Salinsen can VETO it if ona still has strong feelings since I really respect what ona has said so far

atomic nexus
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So uh
My suggestion

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You've been called racist. Follow your ABC123!

  1. First, Acknowledge that their feelings are valid.
  2. Second, Become aware of what you did. Research, look at how the person phrased to see what might be wrong, whatever you need.
  3. Third, Create your apology. Make it clear to the other person that you are sorry, you understand what you did and how that impacted them, and you will not do those mistakes in your future.
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So does that work

upper drift
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i love this opening actually

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it needs work to be something we could publish, but you are onto something with this imo

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the idea of doing it as an "ABC" of the most immediately necessary steps is fantastic, though, because it is memorable and something people can talk about easily. i also think that this encapuslates all of the steps that are urgently necessary

atomic nexus
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the 123 part came later when I realised the length of the key phrases matched

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Maybe if it went like
A
(Subsections)
B
(Subsections)
C
(Subsections)
It would be better

upper drift
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i stand by the idea of splitting it into an urgent and nonurgent / less urgent section

atomic nexus
upper drift
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hmmm
in hindsight maybe i had a kneejerk response to "acknowledge that their feelings are valid" feeling like bad advice, because if someone actually said that expressly it would likely be even more upsetting

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but yeah mainly wording things like this, maybe i'm just being paranoid and what you wrote is fine

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also the other thing is we don't have to have One True Note for this, we can have multiple notes for multiple approaches to this and have those notes exist alongside one another

atomic nexus
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lemme create that as a note?

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I made it

upper drift
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dope

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we can always edit it later if need be

atomic nexus
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I also rewrote the opening a bit

upper drift
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nodding

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post what you wrote here maybe

cursive salmonBOT
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So, you've been called racist. This is the basic framework for what you should do, the A1B2C3!

First, Acknowledge that their feelings are valid.
Second, Become aware of what you did. Research, look at how the person phrased to see what might be wrong, whatever you need.
Third, Create your apology. Make it clear to the other person that you are sorry, you understand what you did and how that impacted them, and you will not do those mistakes in your future.

#30259e calledracistABC

atomic nexus
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I need to rewrite it a bit more but

upper drift
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i would reneame it to just "ABC" rather than "a1b2c3", and bold the relevant words like you did originally

atomic nexus
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Alright

ashen folio
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oo cool

atomic nexus
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So

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What are all the antiracism notes we have

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We should make a single antiracism note that like

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Tells you what note says what and what it's useful for

hexed lance
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true!

atomic nexus
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I'll try making one

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I need all our notes

hasty briar
# atomic nexus I need all our notes

@calm oak o · sina ken pali sin e ijo </export:1079917695283253270> la mi ken ante e lipu kama tawa ilo Google Sheets kepeken nasin Python mi · mi pali e nasin ni lon tenpo pini la ni li kepeken tenpo lili tawa mi

hasty briar
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@atomic nexus would you be willing to DM me the email address you use for accessing Google Docs files? I don't want to make all the notes public.

hasty briar
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Like, obviously they're already public to anyone in this server, but I don't want to make them public to the entire internet

upper drift
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https://youtu.be/VA5U8GTPTTA?si=HIqoG-fbQsxH-Q10

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upper drift
upper drift
hasty briar
upper drift
hasty briar
hard shadowBOT
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