Safe Space and Accessibility Policy Questions

[aceeccentric]

In writing up a draft of the safe space and accessibility policies for the ace community, I've come across a few questions that I want to get some feedback on before sending the draft out for editing (and then posting it for more editing).

• Do we want to include an age note? (Not allowing in anyone under 13 or something.)
• Do we want to include suspensions? (In addition to outright banning.)
• Do we want to include freezing and deleting content? (If something violates the safe space policy, do we want to have notes about freezing threads or deleting comments and posts? What would be the conditions to decide between freezing and deleting? Do we feel there's a difference between deleting entire posts and deleting comments or comment threads? Etc.)

For the accessibility policy, so far I've got:

• Image descriptions required when including images or linking to images
• Putting flashing animations behind a cut with a warning
• Descriptions required when including videos or linking to videos (even if the video has captions)

These are the most common accessibility concerns I've seen. I'm sure I'm either overlooking or unaware of more things, so if there's another concern you're aware of or that would be important to you, please let me know.

Name poll to come soon, also. I just wanted to make them separate posts and not do one right after the other.

Comments

[virescence]

Oh, I am so glad to see this XD I've been saying to sciatrix pretty much every single day how much I was looking forward to this community getting set up XD

- I think an age note might be fair - we'll probably end up discussing sex-related things at some point, and most aces probably won't be self-aware at 12 anyway. We shouldn't have an age limit too much over that, though - we don't want to be turning away the new, lost aces who need somewhere safe to figure themselves out.

- I'm not sure how useful suspensions will be - it depends on how the community develops. But under the assumption that there will at some point be people who are usually valuable members of the community but still mess up on occasion, and who therefore need some kind of punishment but not an actual banning, I'll say yes.

- I'd say simply delete anything that breaks the safe space policy (but maybe keep copies of it somewhere just in case it becomes necessary reference in future - for example, if someone repeatedly breaks the policy in minor ways, and are eventually suspended/banned, and start protesting about how they never broke a single rule, it's good to have copies of all those things they did.) Freezing... I can imagine it being used on threads which don't break policy but are becoming heated and look like they're going to break it, if such threads ever happen.

I don't have anything to add to the accessibility policy except that they all sound like great things.

(And also I realise I never replied to that comment in the previous post - sorry! It's that annoying dissertation thing again...)

[aceeccentric]

Heh. I needed a couple of days to stop being exhausted from my trip ;)

- I don't want to turn anyone away either. I don't expect, say, five year olds coming on. But Dreamwidth's terms of service say you need to be 13 to use the site in the first place (not that people don't lie). Perhaps we could have it be 13 like Dreamwidth has it and ask people posting to rate posts with sexual material with "Viewer Discretion Advised" in the age restriction section? (I think if you have your birthday keyed in and it's rated 18+, you can't see it... which could bar people from really useful information, which I'm wary of doing.)

- Yeah, I wasn't sure how useful a suspension would be, but I figured I'd ask. Perhaps we'll see how opinions filter in. Maybe there could be a process to reapply for membership after a year. Or, if someone is consistently messing up on the accessibility policy, they could have posting privileges taken away for a while.

- Copies is a good idea if people want to delete rather than freeze. I hadn't thought about people protesting about never having broken a rule.

(No problem. After my trip I'm a little mixed up on what I have and haven't done, myself.)

[shiyiya]

If you have to be thirteen to use DW as a whole, it seems pretty pointless to have a note about age at all.

[aceeccentric]

Vote noted. I'd been scrolling through other safe space policies I could find and some had age notes for over 13, so I figured I'd pose the question.

[virescence]

That sounds like a great option re: not having an age requirement (other than DW's) and simply putting the age-restriction on certain posts. And on freeze/delete - having looked at everyone else's comments I am still for my original suggestion. We need to have an archive of what people have said and done, but we also don't want potential triggers sitting around, even if they're frozen. Deleting them but keeping copies is the best way, I think.


(I'm also wondering if it's necessary to have the name poll run for a week? I mean obviously if you need that week anyway to get things organised, that's a different matter - but with everything that's happening on tumblr, people's moods seem to be very low, and I'm concerned for the people on there who don't have any safe spaces. Though at the same time I really really don't want to rush or pressure you. Um.)

[aceeccentric]

I think that's still a good option (re: freeze/delete) and I'll probably pose the question specifically when the draft of the policy goes up so that the options are there and people can see which one they like best and are most comfortable with.

(With having to send out the draft for the safe space policy for editing, then having to put up the draft of the safe space and accessibility policies for people to look over, I figure it might take a week for the policies to be done. If it seems like voting's stalled out I'll post the results earlier, but I don't want to create the community before we've got at least the basics of the policies hammered out. In case we get trolled. I also still have to write up/propose the membership policy.)

[sciatrix]

I'm conflicted on the idea of an age note and lean, I think, on the side of either not including one or not heavily enforcing any note that is included. I feel like under-13s, if they're reading, could use the safe space.

I don't think I'm in favor of suspensions--in my experience, once you've gotten to the point of suspending a member, they're not going to get any better or change with time. Ban them and have done with it.

Re: freeze vs. delete--I'm a fan of freezing for archival and transparency purposes if we're going to pick one. Deleting someone else's posts, even in terms of moderation, carries a lot more potential for drama.

[aceeccentric]

I checked and Dreamwidth itself has a policy of needing to be 13 to use the site, so perhaps we could ... just leave the age note to Dreamwidth? And then if someone younger joins, possibly it's a Dreamwidth thing and not us? Your note about younger people needing a safe space struck me and I know I wasn't exactly sticking to "age appropriate" places at 13.

Vote for banning. I currently mod a fanfic community (that shall remain nameless) but it's not really the kind of place where suspension or banning comes up. So I don't have that kind of experience and it's good to hear from people.

Ahh, that's a good point and it makes me lean towards freezing myself. Perhaps if the offending material is in a post itself, the post could be edited to have the material behind a cut if it isn't already. (I think there's a setting for mods to be able to edit entries, anyway. I'd have to check. We could have a "frozen by mod" tag if not.)

[shiyiya]

The problem I see with just freezing material is that it would/could mean there's nasty triggery material sitting around in a community that's meant to be a safe space - even if it's behind a cut, seeing it would be a reminder of what it is.

[aceeccentric]

I suppose this particular point is another thing that needs to go to a vote. I'll leave this post up another day or two in case there's any more comments coming and then ask people about it more specifically.

[codeman38]

I think that wise use of the age tags for any remotely explicit posts (and these can be set by a mod, if the poster forgets to do it) would largely eliminate the need for an age policy. (As an extra safety measure, the 14+ rating could be used by default, and then mods could retag any post that's not explicit.)

[aceeccentric]

I like this better than putting a hard age rule on. Notes in the post and perhaps tags could take care of a lot (tags would be helpful for archival purposes anyway, and I've already got in the policy that explicit content needs to have a note on it because some people are going to be repulsed/not going to want to read it/going to be somewhere they can't read that kind of thing).