zeborah: Map of New Zealand with a zebra salient (Default)
[personal profile] zeborah
Okay, try this one:
1) We will focus on discussing the process of writing speculative fiction (science-fiction, fantasy, and related genres).

2 a) We know that writers write in various genres, at various lengths, on various topics, in various orders, with various technologies, varyingly planned or unplanned, etc, according to their personal style and needs.
  b) We want to share what works for us, and we want other writers to feel free and safe to share what works for them.
  c) Therefore we will avoid implying either that any particular technique is obligatory, or that any particular technique is wrong - though there might be times when a particular technique is wrong for a particular author or for a particular story.

3 a) We know that society in general and speculative-fiction in specific contain many stereotypes and biases that are racist, sexist, homophobic, ablist, and/or intolerant of people in non-nuclear family structures, people of different religions or of no religion, and others.
  b) We don't want to unwittingly perpetuate such stereotypes and biases in our own fiction. We also don't want to unwittingly perpetuate them in real life and/or hurt a fellow human being.
  c) Therefore we want other members to feel free and safe to point out to us if we've said something that accidentally perpetuates stereotypes or biases or is otherwise hurtful; and we will take it as a favour and learn from it if they do.

4) Therefore, on-topic discussions will include but not be limited to:

  a) dragon biology, alien speech patterns, how horses differ from motorcycles, ways to show/confuse chronology in time travel stories, etc;
  b) outlines, punctuation, use of themes, infodumps, RSI, pen porn, etc;
  c) cultural appropriation, sexist language, homophobic tropes, depictions of religion, etc; and
  d) pun cascades, cats and chocolate, etc; because frivolity is the mortar that binds together a community.

5) The group will be moderated by a panel in order to keep it friendly and safe for all members.

If you're still not happy with it, it would be of great help to me if you could note precisely what you disagree with and/or offer alternative wordings.

But please note that I consider it very important to explicitly include:
a) the groups that have been implicitly sidelined by the sf community in general and rasfc in particular; and
b) the topics which were theoretically allowed on rasfc but which in practise more than one of us was afraid to talk about.

Date: 2009-05-02 11:52 am (UTC)
ext_6381: (Default)
From: [identity profile] aquaeri.livejournal.com
I hate LJ, just swallowed my comment.

Do you want a Dreamwidth invite code (for a free account, can back up your LJ)?

I don't like 3 either (sorry you're getting the short version due to my paranoia, but I can add more detail as you ask). I'd prefer something like "all participants respect and assume good will of all other participants and respect their personal experience, regardless of background, ethnicity, gender and/or sexual identity."

Date: 2009-05-03 07:20 am (UTC)
ext_6381: (Default)
From: [identity profile] aquaeri.livejournal.com
I think I understand why you're flailing, and I understand you want teeth. I just don't know how to put in teeth that will actually work.

I'd argue very strongly against existing rasfc "respect and good will" - DDF treats everyone who doesn't agree with him as though we just haven't been enlightened to his way of thinking yet, or we're too stupid to understand how profound his view of the world is. I have lost respect for him, and everyone else who posts stupid homophobic evolutionary psychology speculation with no connection to actual reality and who can't even look ashamed when I mention they sound like they've never talked to a gay person. And who don't seem to think that talking to a gay person might be a prerequisite for talking about them.

I'm still flailing. I want a filter that keeps people like DDF out. I can't define one to my satisfaction (that isn't excluding of people I'd like included). That's part of what fascinates me about him. It's obvious to me there's something wrong with how he interacts with people who don't think like he does, or aspire to, but I don't know how to turn that into a generic rule that would be useful.

One of the things I did have in the comment that got eaten was that while I know you aspire to 3, and I think I do too, we're possibly about the only rasfc regulars who do (darkhawk? a few others who have already fled?) and while you need something like 3 to be welcoming to eg PoC writers (who I'd imagine would avoid rasfc like the plague) I don't see, from a purely practical point of view, that we have a line of PoC writers eager to join if only we had rules that made it a safe space for them. We do have a group of disaffected ex-rasfc'ers and I think it's more important to come up with rules that make them think it's going to be a safe space.

That will probably mean this is going to be a mainly-white-women group; that is possibly not your dream. But I'm afraid I think your chances of setting up a different group, with say lots of PoC, are Buckley's and none. You will have to find existing PoC-rich writing communities and sit around quietly and listen for a long time.

The privilege thing sucks. I don't think you can come up with rules to try to deal with privilege that won't either scare off all the people who haven't engaged with privilege or still lead to RaceFail type disasters. Because the thing about privilege is that you don't realise you have it and you will deny having it and it takes a lot of work and effort and time to accept that you do, and to change your world outlook enough to start being more aware of it, and not go into panicked self-defence every time someone with less privilege points out your arse is showing.

Look at what happened in RaceFail. At least the moments that were most striking to me were E.Bear trying to demonstrate how to be a White Writer accepting criticism from a PoC reader - I mean the fact that she wanted to demonstrate that suggests some kind of awareness of the problem but as soon as we got into it, she showed that she hadn't thought about it at all - the mere 'taking one for the team' phrase set off alarm bells in some PoC right at the beginning and now I understand much better, it sets off alarm bells in me too. And the other was PHN assuming that the people who were upsetting medievalist (or someone else?) were white males, that she and he were naturally more enlightened and less racist than anyone who could upset them, and who just never seemed to accept out loud that really, truly, there are more PoC (and women PoC) on LJ participating in racism discussions in fandom than he'd ever met or known of at conventions because conventions are racist places.

I'm just rambling again. I can't help you. I'm trying to think back to pre-racefail me, and what I'd have found acceptable and not, and what I find acceptable now and not, and I've changed so much in that respect that almost nothing means the same thing as it did back then. It's about being pulled out of your comfort zone kicking and screaming, and eventually understanding that the reward for doing the work isn't a new comfort zone, but a permanent discomfort zone.

Date: 2009-05-03 01:19 pm (UTC)
ext_12726: (Bluebells)
From: [identity profile] heleninwales.livejournal.com
I'm at a point where I am accepting that I have privilege

The problem is, privilege is relative not absolute. In fact, in many ways, talking about "privilege" is not a helpful mode of discourse.

Unfortunately, I have 4 assignments to write and 37 to mark by 14 May, so I can't elaborate further at the moment, but I am a different generation to you and most of any apparent privilege I may now have, I have largely fought for very hard. Class, gender and ethnicity interconnect in very complex ways and people can't all be divided into the two classes of "privileged" and "oppressed". I am neither of those.

I also felt that the whole Racefail debate was, as usual, largely US-centric and very simplistic to boot. The issues are terribly complicated and, though I can't speak for the US, in the UK, the lack of black people or Asians or people from ethnic minorities at SF conventions is as much due to class and culture (with a small "c") as it is to race. I would even question whether non-white, non-geeks actually want to come to a convention such as the UK's Eastercon. They seem well represented in the media conventions, as far as I can judge from photos of the events and from attending a Babylon 5 convention some years ago.

My worry over having a very specific "What this group is for" statement is that it is likely to put off people who would fit in perfectly and still not help us deal with the arseholes.

PS Could we change the word "safe" to "comfortable"? I have never felt unsafe even during the worst spats on rasfc, but I have frequently felt very uncomfortable.

Date: 2009-05-04 04:04 am (UTC)
ext_6381: (Default)
From: [identity profile] aquaeri.livejournal.com
I'm reading a lot of dreamwidth "how we organised this and why" and one of the things they keep bringing up is wanting transparent rules and process, and they explain why. I think your desire for this statement is related, and so I support your effort to come up with one, however blasted difficult it's turning out to be. So I was very much along the lines of 'too hard' to come up with a specific statement but I think you're right to want to try to have it.

You might find DW's diversity statement interesting, for inspiration, and because I suspect reading that will be more helpful to you at this point than reading me.

Date: 2009-05-04 04:22 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] hrj.livejournal.com
I'm wondering if maybe adding a bit of the "and why" might be useful in this case. If the Vision Statement included something to the effect of "some of the principles of this group are being stated explicitly in reaction to some specific bad experiences the founder(s) had Elsewhere and are trying to pre-empt here" I wonder if it might help readers to be alert to a larger context, rather than leaving them to try to puzzle it all out from the Vision Statement alone. (That is, help them during the period when they're trying to decide whether to invest some time and energy into joining.)

Date: 2009-05-05 04:35 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] birdsedge.livejournal.com
Ooh, ouch. I already feel excluded by 3a) I personally have never felt uncomfortable, unwelcome or excluded from other writers' groups because of prejudice or... anything else really. It may be generational. I just get on with the conversations I'm interested in, ignore what I don't like, killfile persistent offenders (On rasfc I never read JAD or DFF for instance, and haven't for years.) I try not to offend others and I try not to look in every nook and cranny for offence from others. (If it's there I'll notice it withour seeking it out.)

I know in 3b) you say 'All other people are also, of course, welcome,' but then you qualify it by saying, 'provided that they respect the purpose of the group and the experiences of its other members,'

In other words the purpose of the group is not to discuss writing SF, it seems to be for marginalised people to discuss the writing of SF in a sheltered environment. Where has your inclusivity gone?

I do feel that in trying to be fair to the minority, you are smacking the majority in the face by firstly assuming that they need telling how to behave (most of us do not) and secondly trying to over-legislate for every last little thing you feel might possibly go wrong.

I honestly believe that you should drop all the specifics and just add a caveat that members will be expected to show respect for fellow members regardless of race, creed, gender, physicality, geography or culture. It all boils down to mutual respect in the end. Is it too difficult to keep it simple?

I've written several equal opportunities policies for organisations and keeping the hard specifics out of it is really the trick to covering the widest range of possibilities and making sure that potential transgressions can be dealt with under a broad generality.

I want to support your new group but instead of being totally inclusive, you seem to be excluding people like me. aquaeri says you're oversimplifying. What you're trying to deal with is such a complex subject that I honestly think less is more in this case.

It seems to be turning into a political group set up to deal with _issues_. Eeep! I just want to talk about writing SF.

(no subject)

From: [identity profile] birdsedge.livejournal.com - Date: 2009-05-06 11:16 am (UTC) - Expand

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From: [identity profile] caper-est.livejournal.com - Date: 2009-05-06 07:45 pm (UTC) - Expand

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From: [identity profile] birdsedge.livejournal.com - Date: 2009-05-08 01:42 pm (UTC) - Expand

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From: [identity profile] birdsedge.livejournal.com - Date: 2009-05-09 09:39 pm (UTC) - Expand

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From: [identity profile] birdsedge.livejournal.com - Date: 2009-05-10 03:20 pm (UTC) - Expand

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From: [identity profile] aquaeri.livejournal.com - Date: 2009-05-12 12:16 am (UTC) - Expand

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From: [identity profile] aquaeri.livejournal.com - Date: 2009-05-08 03:32 am (UTC) - Expand

Rant, read at own peril.

From: [identity profile] aquaeri.livejournal.com - Date: 2009-05-08 03:10 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: Rant, read at own peril.

From: [identity profile] birdsedge.livejournal.com - Date: 2009-05-08 01:18 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: Rant, read at own peril.

From: [identity profile] aquaeri.livejournal.com - Date: 2009-05-14 09:48 am (UTC) - Expand

warning contains racefail related ranting.

Date: 2009-05-04 03:59 am (UTC)
ext_6381: (All-white Zeki)
From: [identity profile] aquaeri.livejournal.com
I think you're massively oversimplifying - no-one is implying that privilege is a yes-no state, as demonstrated by the fact that I'm talking about my awareness of my (white) privilege while as woman I don't have privilege.

The issue as I see it for Z is to not only make her new community welcoming to people who felt uncomfortable on rasfc, but also welcoming to people who never even considered joining rasfc. And I think they are going to include people who are going to upset the nice little white-women applecart, if they don't take one look at people like you and go elsewhere.

As for RaceFail, there were a significant number of PoC Brits who took part and who had to say again and again that yes, racism and privilege are problems in British fandom, and they're getting tired of having to tell all the white British fans that. Many of the most vocal "anti-racism" PoC voices were British, ah here's the link I wanted, and please note the date.

I think there were some really interesting things on the UK side of RaceFail, but I agree you had to make a large investment of time and effort to find it. I don't think that's the fault of the people who made rich, impassioned statements about how racism affected their lives and their experience in fandom and how hard it was to overcome their own ingrained racism to talk about it.

I think that was the fault of freaking-out white people, "oh my goodness someone called me a racist and here's my anti-racist membership card", "how can you be so mean to X as to call zir a racist", and to a significant extent, I'm afraid, people like you who spent a lot of time and effort on saying "there's nothing valuable or important happening here" or "I'm not interested, I don't care". I think that's extremely symptomatic of the problem and you're not going to get much sympathy from me pulling that line again because I'm more and more likely to just lump you in as part of the problem.

I also find it sort of offensive that you think the privilege you now have you fought for. I don't think that's privilege, and that's not what the big problems around privilege are about anyway. The privilege I know you have that you didn't fight for include having white skin, being born in a western country whose economy and modern western outlook and ability to give more rights to women, the working class, etc was partly based on colonialism and flat-out slavery. You still benefit from the results of that history, and PoC still suffer disadvantages.

(frozen) Re: warning contains racefail related ranting.

Date: 2009-05-04 01:05 pm (UTC)
ext_12726: (Default)
From: [identity profile] heleninwales.livejournal.com
I'm sorry, I know you didn't mean to do it, but what you have said has upset me and is hitting all my insecurity buttons. I am not going to enter into a debate about it. I'm posting this just once and then will say no more.

You don't know my background -- there is no reason you should -- but in terms of the UK during the time I was a child, I was not born privileged. I was eighteen before I met a middle-class person. Until then, I'd only come across them in books. People like me never had stories written about them. Just like Deepad, I never saw my background in the stories I read, though it was class not colour that put me beyond the pale.

Am I racist? I like to think I'm not, but I have no way of knowing because I grew up in an all white area and I live in an almost all white area. I try to treat everyone fairly and that's all I can do. As my students are all online, I have no way of knowing their race or ethnicity unless their name gives it away or they happen to mention it.

I'm sorry I can't do more to right the wrongs of Britain's colonial past, but as neither I nor any of my ancestors (to the best of my knowledge) have been involved in the slave trade nor benefited from it directly, I don't see why I should feel any guilt or responsibility a) for something I haven't done, b) is now in the past and c) I have no control over. I don't apologise to every German I meet because my uncle was in the RAF in WWII and flew bombing raids over Berlin, yet that would make far more sense.

I thought I was planning to join a writers' group, not a political campaign. If we're all going to be expected to wear hair shirts and apologise all the time for being white and privileged, then it's going to upset me as much as rasfc ever did, though for entirely different reasons.

I'm sorry. I probably shouldn't post this and I'm not going to take any further part in the debate. I know you mean well, but right now, I'm feeling upset.

(frozen) Re: warning contains racefail related ranting.

Date: 2009-05-04 11:03 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] brownnicky.livejournal.com

'Wanting to avoid hurting people is not political'
but deciding whose hurt counts is. I am horrified by the way you have disregarded Helen's experience.

I'm out of here.

hard

Date: 2009-05-04 04:14 am (UTC)
ext_6381: (Default)
From: [identity profile] aquaeri.livejournal.com
Anyway. Discomfort zone, absolutely. But I'm in a mood (this may be a life-stage mood because I feel the same at work) to quit letting my discomfort hold me back from doing things that I think would be good things. At the same time I don't want my cockeyed idealism to set up a situation that'll explode for someone else. But... I don't want to support the status quo by not trying.

I agree with all this. I think we want the same thing. I'm just trying to figure out how I can help you get there, and provide my 2 cents, and hope some of it is useful somehow.

And I'm worried eg with example right here that you, by trying to do the right thing, will alienate the people you do already have on-side. And I can't work out if that's a good or a bad thing - I know it was difficult to learn to deal with my privilege, and I'm sure there's rounds of it I haven't hit yet. And it's a status quo that's really really hard to not support and yet have most people (similar to current disaffected rasfc'ers) feel comfortable with, because it's putting demands on them they may not want to meet, or have the time to meet. And I know that that luxury is part of the evidence that they have privilege, and then I get all tied up in how complicated it all is.

I don't want to not make the effort. But I don't think I'm making a productive effort right now, so I should do something else until I can figure out how.

impartial arbiters

Date: 2009-05-03 07:42 am (UTC)
ext_6381: (Default)
From: [identity profile] aquaeri.livejournal.com
Ah, something I have thought of and wanted to mention (amazing how hitting the "post" button helps my memory):

One of the other things that annoys me about DDF that I'd like to get into some sort of rule/guideline form which unfortunately makes moderation about 1000 times harder (but moderation is hard): DDF when he argues is both one side of the argument, and believes he is an impartial arbiter of the argument (and that there is a position which an impartial arbiter can take). And somehow, a large fraction of rasfc agrees with him. I never saw anyone treat me like I was an impartial arbiter in any of my arguments with him (although some people found me persuasive enough that they personally stopped treating DDF as impartial arbiter although they did not scream very loudly for him to back down every time he acted as though he was an impartial arbiter).

In general, as I understand my own privilege and the whole problem around it better, I see more and more clearly that there usually is no impartial arbiter and can't be. And it is a product of white colonialist enlightenment thingy stuff that we even assume that there is an impartial arbiter viewpoint. And the fact that it's male, white, western, enlightenment thinking etc is what makes privilege privilege, or at least a big component. It's the privileged point of view.

Once there is no privileged point of view, who is an impartial arbiter for any given conflict? (Because there will be conflicts at some point). I think you should be very flattered so many people are happy with the idea of you as moderator, because in many respects you're not exactly near the middle of the distribution of views I expect the group will have. But there's a high risk you yourself will be involved in conflict, and you can't be the moderator for those. But how do you get co-moderators you trust? And then how to prevent moderators/ruling clique vs lowly underdog conflicts? Or will we just have to say "tough luck, form your own group if you don't like the rules for this one?"

(I'm thinking about this because my partner was recently the lowly underdog in a moderators vs lowly underdog conflict on a webforum he's on, and the problem with setting up his own group apart from needing the time and money to do it was that the webforum pretty much had a monopoly on that subject matter for australasia. It was made worse in that case in that as far as I could tell, the moderators were not applying rules consistently, and there was a very definite conflict between the interests of a "lowly underdog" participant and the advertisers, which was the basic problem really. But the advertisers of course were who had brought in the money to allow the forum to have the neat features etc that had led to it being the leading forum, and eventual monopoly. This by the way is part of why I'm switching to dreamwidth - no advertisers to get into conflict with.)

Re: impartial arbiters

Date: 2009-05-04 12:43 am (UTC)
ext_6381: (Default)
From: [identity profile] aquaeri.livejournal.com
I think you're right on all this - I don't want to deny that you are doing hard work, that it is a good thing you're aiming for, and that by doing all this, you are likely to come up with something pretty good.

Just noting, because most of my comments are more about the bits I disagree with, and I don't want to give the impression Oh Noes You're Doin It Rong. I'm focussing on the bits where I think I might be able to help you get something better, both for you and the other participants.

Plus, have some cookies.

How do you *do* "non-political" anyway?

Date: 2009-05-08 01:49 am (UTC)
ext_6381: (Default)
From: [identity profile] aquaeri.livejournal.com
Just sending more cookies, because I've been away for a little while and now come back to read what's happened since and whoa, doesn't feel like going away for a while helped in the slightest.

But I need to go find something to eat and I hope some of my reaction is hunger and stress off other things interacting badly.

(and did you get to see the feminist cookies? FTW! I'm planning on baking some. Oh, and I just notice now one of the images has been censored/TOSsed by photobucket. That would be the "Not a rapist" cookie image.)

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