Dreamwidth comm: thoughts

[aceeccentric]

Hey y'all :) So lately people have been talking about starting a new ace community on Dreamwidth for asexual, demisexual, grey-asexual and other folk to talk. The advantage being that with a community that we created and moderated ourselves, it'd be easier to shut down any attacks than it would be on other sites.

Below are just some thoughts I've had about creating a community. I'm very curious about other people's thoughts and opinions. I'm pretty sure, also, that I have anonymous and Open ID commenting enabled.

Also, just to warn y'all, I'm going to be largely unavailable from the 2nd to the 7th -- my girlfriend is coming to visit! :D So unless some people decide to help mod (or, babysit mod for just those days) I don't want to start the community while I won't be able to check on it.

Oh, and I have more Dreamwidth invite codes for anyone who still needs them. You can leave a way to contact you in a comment or leave an Ask through Tumblr (I have anon asks enabled). If you only have an e-mail to have the code sent to, I promise not to do anything nefarious with your address.

Name

Right now the suggested names for the community (that I've seen) are Group_X (suggested by captainheartless and modified with an underscore by various people) and acecommunity (suggested by epochryphal). ETA: acesabroad has also been suggested (by shiyiya). ETA2: ace_umbrella also came up as a possibility (theletterfour).

I was going to make a poll but I don't know right now whether I want to buy a paid account, so instead I'll just create a dedicated name thread where people can comment with other name suggestions or which one of the suggestions they like.

Purpose

The main purpose would be to create a community space to talk about ace continuum things that would be safer than the current Tumblr environment. People could get to know each other and know attacks against the community within the community could be frozen, deleted, blocked, etc., more easily than the "asexual" and other tags on Tumblr, which anybody can use.

If anybody has any other ideas about giving the community more of a focus, leave them below.

Open Threads

One thing I would like to do is have a weekly Open Thread. A post that's just a free-for-all in the comments, where people can talk about anything, get to know each other better, and ease into the community. Probably each post could also have a specific prompt to get people talking about something in particular (favorite jokes, videos, candies, etc.).

Other Posts

One thing I like about Tumblr is the way it can mix personal posts and discussion-oriented posts, so I think it'd be nice to allow either here. Being able to talk about something personal that you want or need to share with fellow community members. Maybe the guidelines would be to keep them related to the focus of the community and to put long posts or big images behind cuts so as not to clutter up people's reading lists or slow down their load times.

Safe Space Policy

Considering the environment that prompted people wanting an extra space, I think it's important that we write a safe space policy. I've never written one of these before, so I'm not exactly sure how to go about it, but it'd probably include putting trigger warnings on posts, putting potentially triggering material behind cuts, not attacking people's identities, and avoiding derogatory (anti-trans, ableist, ageist, sexist, racist, classist, etc.) attitudes and language.

Also, possibly making entries default to members-only security? I think the Open Threads would necessarily be members-only, for the protection of those who felt comfortable only discussing things in a locked entry. We could ask all entries to be members-only if people wanted things that way.

If anybody wants to help out with this it'd be much appreciated. Anything that gets written would, of course, be posted for people to review and make suggestions or comments on.

Accessibility Policy

The Dreamwidth team seems to be pretty good about coding accessibility into the website. Beyond that I'd like to include warnings and cuts on flashing images or video in case anyone visiting the community might have a seizure because of something like that, and image descriptions on any images included in posts. And maybe summaries or transcripts for videos that people post, because a lot of time videos don't have captions or the option to try auto-captioning (when auto-captioning is even reliable).

Admin

Right now I don't mind starting up and modding the community. I have enough time on my hands to do that, I think (of course I'm saying this before the new semester starts, but last semester wasn't that bad, so…), and I did start a specific discussion about it, so it's only fair. I'd appreciate hearing thoughts on being able to mod from anybody else, even if you'd only be free on the weekends or something.

Membership

Moderated membership doesn't seem like it would work at the moment -- there are a lot of new accounts and little-used accounts (including my own), and I'm not sure how we would "verify" people, since most moderated policies I've seen have been based on the age of the journal and how much activity it's had. But we'd have the option of creating a moderated membership policy if we were having trouble. We could also write up a policy for suspending/banning members if we wanted to have one.

And, of course, offer your own opinions on this.

Design

I figure we could just pick an easy-to-read theme out of the ready-made themes Dreamwidth offers. But if anybody wants to design a layout, banner, icon, or profile, that'd be cool too. I don't know how to do much more than fiddle with layout colors. I'd prefer to pick something neutral colored (like asexual_fandom has).

Tags

I almost forgot about tags! So, tags I can think of off the top of my head:

asexuality, demisexuality, grey-asexuality, attraction, sexuality, relationships, dating, romantic relationships, zucchini, community, coming out, family, invisibility, gender, media, video, images, representation, pride, merchandise, meet-ups, open thread, mod post, sex, erasure, tagging (for a master tag post where people could request new tags?).

ETA: Also suggested are discussion, intersectionality, tag request (in place of requesting things at a master tag post), and 101, if we wanted to put 101-type entries into the comm.

I know there should be more but I'm not sure how to phrase them or what they should be exactly. Like, aromantic and wtfromantic are adjectives but everything else is a noun … I'm probably the only one who would even notice that though.

That's it for now!

Comments

Name Thread

[aceeccentric]

Comment with your opinions about names here!

Re: Name Thread

[sciatrix]

I kind of like "group_x" over "groupx," myself. Right now I like that better than "acecommunity" or "ace_community" because it feels... catchier.

Re: Name Thread

[aceeccentric]

Some version of Group X does sound catchier. Right now that's my vote. I don't know why I didn't think of underscores XD group_x is nice.

Re: Name Thread

[(Anonymous)]

Agreed; throwing my vote in for group_x with the underscore now. c:

Re: Name Thread

[raumkins]

Oh good lord. Sorry, that was me; DW logged me out without my noticing.

Re: Name Thread

[aceeccentric]

DW did that to me last night, no problem. Another group_x vote!

Re: Name Thread

[shiyiya]

Presumably because of having just read Wyrd Sisters, I kind of fancy 'acesabroad'.

Out of the two mentioned in the post, I'd point out that someone looking for an ace com is going to have a lot harder time finding groupx, so I'd lean towards acecommunity.

Re: Name Thread

[aceeccentric]

...acesabroad is kind of cool actually. I will add it to the list.

Lean towards acecommunity noted!

I think that when you enter the "name" part next to "username" (on my account it's "ace eccentric" with a space) that shows up in searches too. So in theory a description along the lines of "discussing asexuality, demisexuality, and grey-asexuality" would allow it to be searched no matter the name. Within-site, the interests would let it be searched too. But I'm not completely positive on that. I may be able to ask how search engines index things on DW, hmm...

Re: Name Thread

[kaz]

...acesabroad should totally be some kind of asexual travel blog or meetup record, I think. It's a totally awesome name and it needs to exist! I just don't associate it with a community like this? idk.

Re: Name Thread

[shiyiya]

I agree! My thought process was basically HEY THAT SOUNDS COOL, heh.

Re: Name Thread

[kaz]

honestly I am pondering possible uses for this comm JUST IN ORDER TO JUSTIFY CREATING IT because the name is so cool.

Incidentally, random other name option I came up with and then discarded: aceshigh. Cool pun, but it sounds like we're all smoking pot. D:

Re: Name Thread

[aceeccentric]

That would be cool. Even though I will probably never attend a meetup, lol. It is an interesting name.

Re: Name Thread

[virescence]

I am excited about this and have a shiny new account to be excited in XD

I'll give my vote to group_x - I like acecommunity too, but group_x is more... fun? And if it'll be just as easy to find the community anyway, I'd rather have the fun name. And I prefer the underscore version. "groupx" makes me try to figure out how I should pronounce it. Groupcks?

Re: Name Thread

[shiyiya]

Heh, Groupcks makes me think of Fourecks.

Re: Name Thread

[virescence]

Hee XD Not a bad name when you put it like that!

Re: Name Thread

[aceeccentric]

Lol :) I didn't think about people trying to pronounce it as one word. Underscore it is. I should update the entry to reflect that.

Re: Name Thread

[theletterfour]

I prefer group_x to acecommunity. If we want to detail the community aspect of the comm, perhaps something like ace_umbrella might work better. I don't know why, but that seems a little more... inclusive than ace_community, as well as capturing some of the fun of group_x.

Also, at least within the site, I don't think that having "ace" in the username will make it any more easily searchable. I know that I personally rarely if ever use the username search because it doesn't search partial strings. So the username really doesn't matter in terms of finding through searches, because the person would have to already be looking for "acecommunity" or "group_x" first. And then in terms of searching by interest, there's no real advantage to having "Ace" in the name. Maybe for off-site searches, but those engines tend to index the content of individual posts, not just the community name.

Re: Name Thread

[aceeccentric]

group_x seems to be the favorite so far. I do like ace_umbrella better than ace_community, it does seem to communicate that "ace" is being used as an inclusive term rather than a shortening of "asexuality" only.

Right, that's what I was thinking. I've only used the username search to find people's profiles. I figured the interests would be the more common way to search. I wasn't sure how search engines included things, but that's good to know. Even if everyone wants to keep the community content members-only, there could be a public "welcome" entry explaining what it's about (probably a decent mirror of what would be in the profile as well).

Re: Name Thread

[mcacey]

I personally like group_x or ace_umbrella!

Re: Name Thread

[aceeccentric]

Those are my favorites too :)

Re: Name Thread

[shiyiya]

I like ace_umbrella too. You could to silly things with pictures of umbrellas with playing cards on.

Re: Name Thread

[aceeccentric]

I was just picturing all the umbrella graphics. And heh, you could make an actual umbrella. :)

[anghraine]

I like group_x best, too. Acecommunity is clearer but kind of ... prosaic.

[aceeccentric]

Another group_x vote counted! :)

[theletterfour]

1. If at some point, you decide you want a poll, I have some dreamwidth credits sitting in my account that aren't earmarked for anything. I could use those to get you a month or two of paid time so you could make a poll. Of coruse, I'm not sure how a poll functions if your account reverts to a free account..

2. Membership: I don't really like moderated membership communities in general, although I understand that for the purposes of a safe space, it might become necessary. However, there is also the option of having open membership, but only specific members can post, or open membership and all members can post, but the posts are moderated in a queue. If more care is needed, perhaps moderated posting would be a better idea than moderated membership.

2a. banning members: I think it's a good idea to set up guidelines of behaviour before the community is created, so if someone is being a troll or abusive or whatever, it's clearly stated somewhere that such actions aren't tolerated (this also ties into the place being a safe space)

2b/3. Administration: I have no idea whether I'd have time to moderate (I just graduated from university so my schedule is up in the air right now as I figure out what's going to happen next), but I would be willing to help if I have time. I have some experience moderating and running communities in places other than dreamwidth as well as a pretty good handle on how dreamwidth works.

4. tags: Dreamwidth allows a (sort of) nested tag use. It's not true nesting, but a lot of communities have sub-classes of tag where they'll tag anything adminny with "admin: x-tag" rather than just "x-tag." Also if there is a master tag post, you wouldn't really need the tagging tag, since you could just link to that one post in your sidebar. However, you could allow people to request certain tags that didn't exist in the entries themselves, and in that case it would be useful to have a tag named tag request.

Also, there is an available setting for all members to be able to create new tags, however that can open up to tag abuse or to multiple tags for one concept (this was what led to scans_daily running out of tags at one point, because they'd have separate tags for Clark Kent and Superman, for example.)

Depending on the types of posts we're looking for in the community you also might want some tags like... discussion (for a post looking for discussion), 101 (if we're allowing 101-type posts), intersectionality if someone posts about how their asexuality relates to another part of their identity and how that affects privilege... I'm sure there are more, I think there needs to be time to see what happens in the community to see what types of tags are needed. Tags can always be added retroactively as well.

[aceeccentric]

1) Oh that's very kind of you! I don't know how a poll would function if the account reverted either. Probably I'll end up doing something on Survey Monkey and just linking it where I can, it seems the easiest and I'm not sure if people need (to be willing to login to) a specific account at certain websites to fill out a poll on Dreamwidth.

2) I like the idea of moderating posting before moderating membership, if people decided they wanted to put more protections into place. (Perhaps there could be a poll for that too.) Moderating posting would be easier to manage and would take care of the problem of this being newish and people making new Dreamwidth accounts (or just starting to use their Dreamwidth accounts). That also leaves all members able to post.

2a) That makes sense. If everything is written up there won't be an awkward period of wondering if something might happen we don't have a policy for yet.

2b/3) Thank you very much! Even if you didn't end up having much time at all it would probably be good to have multiple people on the account with admin abilities in case one person got ill or had to go on a trip or something and went missing for a while.

4) I forgot about the sidebar. That would be a good place to link a master tag post. And I do like the idea of a "tag request" tag very much, it would probably be easier for people to use than to remember having to go to the master tag post to request thing.

Right. I had thought that having everyone create new tags might lead to a lot of different tags for the same thing (typos, or something like asexual vs. asexuality) and it'd keep them more controlled if there was a central place for creating new tags.

Discussion and intersectionality added to the possible list. I have seen (though of course I don't have it bookmarked) someone talking about wanting to keep 101 and the DW community separate, which makes sense to me, but I think that'll get more opinions when people talk more about what they want the purpose of the community to be. For now I've added it to the list too. I figure, more tags will be added over time, but a basic starter set would make things easier.

[theletterfour]

Yeah, with the 101 stuff, I think it might be wise to say that this isn't a 101 community, especially since it's set up as a safe space for aces. But at the same time it might be useful to have some 101 posts or a link to them, possibly in relation to the safe space policy (this is a safe space, so here are links to things explaining shit you shouldn't do in a safe space) or something. I'm not sure. Mostly I just listed it as a possibly needed tag in case other people think it would be useful to have 101 stuff in the comm.

[aceeccentric]

I might ask about the extent of 101 material people want present in a specific post (here or Tumblr). Maybe people would want a vocabulary page for a bunch of GSM terms or something. But I hadn't thought of it, so it's a good suggestion even if it just reminds me to ask about it more specifically later on.

[shiyiya]

Like this one Charlie The Unicorn links?

[aceeccentric]

Well that's just amazing. I'm saving a copy of that for future reference. Thank you!

[virescence]

Now that I have time to think about more than just names, I'm going to Comment More. Hope that's ok XD

First off: I'd volunteer to help mod if you need me? The next month may not be great for me since it's dissertation crunch time, but after that I should be fine time-wise.

I could also do an icon (and potentially a banner if anyone knows what size one would need to be) - I'm not great with graphics so if anyone else is and wants to they should take priority, but otherwise I'm up for it. (And obviously if anyone has suggestions for what they'd like on them I would be all ears!)

I think having membership unmoderated and then suspending/banning members if necessary is the best way to go about it - but we'd probably need as comprehensive a list of offences as possible beforehand, I think, just so there's something to point to and say "this is what you did wrong". I imagine it would probably tie in quite heavily to the safe-space policy.

What else did I want to say? Oh yes - security. I'm not entirely sure how security works over here so forgive my ignorance, but I think the best option would be a situation where some posts were members-only and some were public (with the poster getting to choose to share them or not, and with Open Threads being private). The main reason I think there should be the option for some public posts is mostly for the sake of newbies. In my experience, I find that some people coming to a place where everything is locked for members only can end up feeling excluded before they've even joined - it can give a community a sort of insular feeling, and it means they can't get a feel for what sort of place a community is before deciding if they want to join it. Having a few posts public would probably help (though with commenting locked for members only, ideally - is that possible?)

And goodness, sorry for rambling. Feel free to ignore anything!

[shiyiya]

I am reasonably proficient with GIMP, if someone else comes up with an idea for icons.

And I have all the free time in the world to help mod, provided I'm not disqualified by dint of being a bit community invisible because no tumblr.

[aceeccentric]

Thanks! I'll remember that :)

You are terribly kind :D I would love to have your help modding. Besides, you filled out my meme -- that means I can verify you ;)

[aceeccentric]

You are an extremely kind and generous person and I bow in your presence ;) Also, best of luck with your dissertation! I have been around people finishing those before and know how hard you must be working. It may be a few more weeks before the comm is up and running, but I will definitely let you know if another mod is needed then, thank you.

An icon would be lovely :) And possibly a banner for the profile. I'm not sure how banners work with most Dreamwidth pre-made layouts. Thank you for offering! As it gets closer maybe I can put up a post specifically about design and solicit people's opinions.

Right. So we could get the policies written before starting the community and then be on sure(r) footing when people do start joining. And then it would make banning people much easier -- though hopefully we are not going to have to do that. But we'll be secure if we do.

That's a good point, about having some public posts so people wondering whether to join can see what the community is like, I hadn't thought of that. You're right, that would make it much easier for new people to lurk a bit before deciding to join. Having the Open Threads members-only will be the most protective option, then, and then people can choose whether their posts are private or not. I checked and you can actually restrict commenting to members only, which will be good.

:) I like long comments.

[sciatrix]

Now that I have a bit more time to sit and make real comments...

Re the safe spaces policy: I was involved with a lot of the intitial ToS planning for the TransYadas forum, so I have some limited experience on that front. Want me to help out with the drafting of the one for this community?

I vote for unmoderated membership. If we have trolling problems later, moderate it and let people in on a provisional basis--keep an eye on them in the community and on their personal spaces, that sort of thing--and wait to see if they become productive members. But to start with, especially with so many people who are brand new to DW, unmoderated seems the best plan.

[aceeccentric]

That would be very nice of you, thank you! I know that you are busy with moving and everything, and since I'll be away most of next week anyway, I'll start drafting something up the second week of August and send you a message? I had a plan to go around reading a bunch of policies before I started, TransYadas is a good idea.

Makes sense to me. My own journal wouldn't even pass most moderated membership policies. I'm hoping we won't have trolling problems ever, but if we do, we'll have the option to put up more security measures.

[sciatrix]

Awesome, that works fine for me! I am now moved but still unpacking, so yeah.

[firiel]

I'm leaning the opposite way with security: we need moderated membership, at least at the beginning when all the trolls will know exactly where to find us. I've seen this idea used before, so I know it works pretty well. It's labor-intensive, but would allow for people who are new to DW to still be included.

The mods are the first members. They invite people. Each new person is allowed a certain number of invites, possibly including why they think that person is trustworthy - link to their Tumblr as evidence, know them IRL, etc. (This is handled through a screened master post.) The mods check each person, invite them, and once the new people have read and commented on the rules/FAQ post they are allowed to invite their 3 (or however many) people. If someone duplicates a nomination, they are allowed to name another person so their turn isn't wasted.

Like I said, this obviously takes a lot of mod time to get off the ground. I would be willing mod at the beginning to help out with the work load, then step down when things are less hectic. The one real problem I see is if people come across the group via the asexual tag here. Perhaps there could be an open thread for requests from people who feel like they don't have someone to vouch for them? I don't think we would need to be on the voucher system for terribly long, so once we switched to normal moderated membership and/or posting, we could do a basic quick vetting of the people on the list and let them in.

Yes, it's a lot of work, but I really feel like anything unmoderated at this point is troll bait. If this is our safe space, we shouldn't give people a chance to come in and be offensive at all, even if they do get banned immediately. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst, because we've seen some of the worst of people.

[shiyiya]

I'm inclined to agree.

Moderated posting and/or screened comments would also help with the people not seeing it too, though? I mean, besides the mods, but I am fine with signing up to deal with that kind of thing.

[aceeccentric]

True. I had been thinking that they would know where to find us -- but I've never seen moderated membership policies based on anything but how long your account's been around and how much site activity you have. An approach that obviously would not work in this situation.

I have never seen the invite approach before but it sounds like it could work. I am in favor of having more protection, even with the extra work (though I would want to pose this possibility to people to see if they'd be okay with going through it).

So we could invite anyone we knew, have the request post, and then give other people recommendation slots to put names in? The mod invites would probably take care of a lot of people... Maybe there could be a collective decision on how long to keep up the moderated membership at first, if people decided that it sounded like a good option to them. I'll put this option up on Tumblr where it'll get some more air, and maybe in its own post, sometime soon (or possibly after I come back from my trip).

Thanks for the feedback. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst, because we've seen some of the worst of people. Yeah, I see what you mean.

[kaz]

Brief notes cause I still have no decent typing ability...

Re: moderated membership, I think we might be able to start with unmoderated and see how it goes from there? My reasoning is that DW needs invite codes (speaking of which if anyone needs any I can send you one when I get back from holiday) and as a result trolls will have to go to a lot more effort re: finding some if they're not already on DW and it won't be easy to create new accounts to harass us. It depends on if they WILL go to that effort and also if any trolls are already DW people.

Main point I wanted to add was re accessibility - PLEASE have a policy of video descriptions or transcripts. It's not only that autocaptioning doesn't work very well but even with captions some people (*waves*) still can't watch or have a great deal of trouble watching video, so adding on some text only stuff makes it more accessible. And although transcripts are obviously best they can be a lot of effort and honestly speaking for myself having someone plonk down a video and then go "above: funny video of a cat" is MUCH less alienating and frustrating than someone just plonking down a video with no description whatsoever and no way for me to figure out WTF is going on in it - this second is the quintessential "Kazzes not welcome" sign for me, captions or not.

[aceeccentric]

True. It's fairly easy to find invite codes but it does put an extra step in the process. And if they already have accounts they may not want to troll with them because if we report them to the DW people I bet they'll be more responsive than the Tumblr people. (The DW team seems very nice; I do eventually want to get a paid account when I have the money just to support the website.) Moderated membership is something that might need to be put to a poll.

Then video transcripts/descriptions will definitely be mandatory along with image descriptions -- with a note to make it clear that one and/or the other is still needed even if the video has captions. I don't want "not welcome" signs to pop up for anybody but trolls.

[kaz]

Thank you very much! :D

And re: moderated membership two more points to muddy the waters further: one, my argument for unmoderated sort of goes via "if they gt in we can ban them really easily and they will have a hard time creating new accounts to troll with" but does sort of assume some will probably make it in. If we really emphatically do not want trolls even for those five seconds moderated is probably best. Second, re: moderation, I am thinking an option could be for people to post on a post in the community (screened) or send an email to the mods or something explaining briefly why they want in. I cannot see many of our trolls managing to fake being an ace or ace ally and imagining it is kind of hilarious ("hi my name is Troll McTrollerson and I'm asexual, not that that really exists you're all just repressing your sexual desire for cake - admit it, that's what you were thinking of when you bought that flan case! - and you're still not queer do you hear me? So, can I join?") I am worried the you know someone who knows someone thing might leave newbies out in the cold, although then the question is how much we're aiming at newbies (I'm in another comm that goes by the invite people principle and there it's sort of designed to be only people who sort of know each other.)

[aceeccentric]

True, unmoderated does assume that someone will make it in to troll. That'll be a good note to make when making a specific post about un/moderated membership, which seems like a question that'll deserve some specific promoting. I do like the idea of people saying in a screened comment or an e-mail more than having them have to wrangle an invite -- they might already have to be hunting down an invite code for the site itself.

And since I made the meme post in my own journal I know at least one person who isn't on Tumblr at all specifically because of the trolls, which makes me think that other people might be in the same situation and might not know anyone to get an invite from. But the screened post/e-mail (possibly private message as well) idea seems like a much less labor-intensive way for people to get in, if we go with moderated membership.

[raumkins]

I like this idea much better than the limited number of invites per person one; I mean, I don't think there will ever be enough applicants at one time to put a serious strain on the moderators. And while it's still a hoop to jump through, it's easier for people who might not have any connection to anyone in the community.

(Which, for the record, I would love to assist the moderators, but I have no credentials, really. :V I've been a mod on several roleplay sites, but that's not quite the same thing. Basically, any way I can be of help, I am here.)

[aceeccentric]

I think it also lessens the strain on members from thinking, "I have these invites, I need to figure out how to get them to people" and figuring out who needs invites and who doesn't. Or having invites but not knowing a lot of people yet.

(Thank you! Any offer is a good offer, I think. I was expecting not to get any. ^_^ I will let you know more when it gets closer to assign mods.)

[(Anonymous)]

An impressive share! I've just forwarded this onto a colleague who has been conducting a little homework on this. And he actually bought me breakfast due to the fact that I stumbled upon it for him... lol. So allow me to reword this.... Thanks for the meal!! But yeah, thanx for spending the time to talk about this issue here on your internet site.