All of Flancian's Comments + Replies
Hi! First post here; please let me know if I get anything wrong (now and forever).
I was very happy to find this post today when I came to review the forum after much procrastination, only signing up finally during EAGxVirtual. In my mind social networks are heavily under-utilized for constructive purposes in general, and for long term / utopian thinking in particular. I have been developing ideas in this space personally prior to joining the community, and I look forward to collaborate with others in EA on these topics if at all possible.
About the current ...
7
4y
If we make a code of conduct, can we consider trying to test a system that we'd want others to replicate. Many times when we build institutions within EA we have th opportunity to test new strategies. If these are successful, then EAs will be much more likely to replicate them in their workplaces. As long as there is an expectation that this is a test, if it fails, that's okay.
I suggest we ask the question "what statements should be in a code of conduct? upvote all that you agree with". People put single lines of the code of conduct and the top 5-10 different points get used.
I would do this myself but I'm wary of stepping on toes, if there is widespread support, I'm happy to.
6
4y
Welcome, and thanks for the contribution! I strongly agree with all three recommendations, and would point to #EconTwitter as a Twitter community that has managed to do all three very well.
Maintaining a strong code of conduct seems particularly useful. Different parts of Twitter have very different conversation norms, ranging from professional to degenerate and constructive to cruel. Norms are harder to build than to destroy, but ultimately individual people set the norm by what they tweet, so anyone can contribute to building the culture they want to see.
FWIW, my two cents would be to discourage more serious EA conversations from moving to Twitter. In my experience, it often brings out the worst in people and conversations. (It also has plenty of positives, and can be lots of fun.)
Hi, Nathan! I very much agree that experimenting as a community with codes of conduct seems promising; ideally I believe they would be maintained in such a crowdsourced (and openly reasoned) way.
This is something I've been interested in for a while, and would like to continue researching as time permits. I am in the process of writing a post for this forum about some possible approaches to constructive community building that I've been considering, mostly to gather feedback and pointers to similar/better ongoing efforts. The question of how to agree on a code of conduct that is maximally constructive and inclusive features prominently. I'll share it here when it's ready, hopefully shortly.