im liking this process / search for common ground and balancing labor of making spaces.
in my mind... and day to day life...
community spaces that want to encourage diverse members to express and take part in a relaxed way, and its natural and everyone's coming from their own place and good discussions going on, people feel heard and respected, exc, need to express and understand that the world is v e r y different depending on who you are.
i thought it might help to provide some music bc i do feel a story coming on, my winds are long lately... @_@ ;;!
fur instance ~ where i live, there's a big push from city council and the tourist (wine) industry to eliminate all homeless (mostly disabled people, predominantly native / indigenous ppl and queer/trans ppl)- eliminate doesnt mean, provide everyone with psychological care for their trauma, help ppl find employment, or provide ppl with housing, it means to make them physically leave or face arrest/imprisonment. It doesn't mean fix homelessness, it means hide the abuses/neglect from the public and the press. however, most cities i know in california are doing this. i had this happen to me multiple times when i was homeless. the idea is, rich ppl don't feel comfortable seeing poor people, and city council wants to make rich people comfortable because they want rich ppls money. the only guaranteed public bathrooms available are in the libraries. when i was homeless (bc im a trans asian person and, statistically speaking i should have met death more completely by now so im content to have missed that bigger problem and landed with a few years of nasty) i knew i could go to a library, if gas stations in the area didn't give me a bathroom key without buying anything. i was raised lower middle class but i had abuse in my family that made me leave before i could get stable and move in somewhere. everyone on the street is simply trying to live and be ok.
for a middle class mom looking for a nice surprise for their kids, the library is a place for books.
for a homeless individual, the library is a place that is tolerant in behavior to visibly homeless ppl; it is a place that lets you access the internet (job searches, food and shelter resources, furaffinity.net); it is a place the police will not harrass you for being homeless; it is a place that lets you wash in the sink a little or p00p for the first time in a day; AND, it is a place for books.
so if middle class mom were anxious around a homeless individual at the library who is just, minding their business but has a backpack and is smelly, that mom might feel entitled to ask the librarians (the mods of the library) to remove the individual. or the mom might not even approach the mods, but take it on her self to be entitled to tell the individual something like, "this is a library, it's for books, why are you here loitering", she's not saying, emotionally, "are you ok? tell me do you have a home, do you have support, what is your life like?" to someone who is doing their best and is probably very traumatized. when she says "this is a library its for books why are you here" shes saying, "this place is not for you."
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not only this but, there is community around at the library also. when this interaction is seen, what do the ppl around them take away? houseless ppl might feel shame or anger or frustration. middle class moms around who fear houseless ppl might feel relieved "someone" finally said "something" (which shows a lot about what voices and people have power and matter in the minds of the middle class). what do kids think? this is where our actions turn into re-creation of the same power dynamics. maybe the kids around will believe it's the individuals fault they are homeless. maybe the kids around will see that the person is a little stinky but they aren't hurting anybody, and be confused why mom is treating this other person with disrespect or even hate. however, did it have to be that way? what kinds of worlds are possible, when we choose to create different power dynamics?
ppl sometimes imagine that there is some kind of balance between two opposing points of view - "left" and "right".
this pretends there is equal access to power, money, time, voice, and inclusion.
if we frame things as, only political, sort of, just for the sake of debate or game, only theory, we are missing all of the information someone might be willing to share - beyond cynical troll responses, self-hating jokes made to try and fit in, and ghostly lurking of forums seeing how many people might be willing to understand before choosing to participate in a thread or roleplay. not only do WE miss out on information, but that person who's identity is being talked about as a debate topic gets the unplesant experience of basically being referred to as a unicorn. while "both sides" of the aisle yell at each other that unicorns do or dont exist, that person is still dealing with... being themselves. i would like to hear those individuals.
if we frame moderator role as protecting furs' access to participate in the forums in a healthy way, whose access are we protecting?
is it good moderation to protect the mom's right to go up to a homeless person and tell them to leave, when she could just give the person respect and distance?
is it good moderation to explain to the mom that the library is for everyone?
who's everyone?
the library is a completely different building depending on who you are.
and if you zoom out of the library, the city is a completely different city depending on who you are. if you zoom out of 2018 and look at human history, the time period where the genocide of native / indigenous ppl, when colonization, was just beginning, it was not that long ago. the year, the city, the library, are all skewed to prioritize the voices and needs of wealthy people, people who are the kids of the kids of the kids of the colonists. so what is good moderation in a context like our lives?
it is so juicy and awesome to have the kinds of threads where ppl can chime in - not just with data on numbers, but with data on emotions and communities. the internet has potential to connect so many people.
i grow older and begin to see the ways a population is more easily kept divided, and the attempt to divide ppls experiences and expressions into "left" and "right" is like trying to render a full color animation into a black and white 16 bit still image at icon sizing. the outcome is yikes.
this is a super long drawl now but i wanted to drawl a picture of what i think of when i read or see community guidelines for a space.
guidelines such as FA forums has right now is a good reference for specific guidelines, but i also think more could be done to skew things away from preventing animosity and more towards asking for input and leadership from furs who have been the punching bags in these early days of internet, because the ground is, kinda lava. the first people who had time money and access to online culture, so the ppl who shaped the power dynamics online, were almost all white guys. not all white dudes are racist 4chan types, but white dudes might not understand the way someone's post is basically saying, "this library is not for you". so i hope that instead of trying to look for people who are "balanced" between "right" and "left", we can look for people with patience, willingness to change power dynamics, and ability to be an advocate for making the forums a place for people to connect and have fun- INcluding those of us who endured race jokes, fat jokes, rape jokes exc at our expense in the past- and EXcluding the expressions of hate in socially acceptable clothing when people post before mentioned content. I'm not saying this is easy, at all, but what we currently have in online cultures reflects only the needs of some. please dont mistake this as a call to make white straight cis men leave because this is not that- but i am interested in what ways ppl could change the collective space to be more representative. it is definately global, diverse, there's disabled, all kinds of experiences, ages, class statuses, cultures, ideas, nightmares, life paths.
but it could also be that ppl have gotten tired of being harassed and that the forums are mostly populated by those of us who feel welcomed in the library and mostly feel like its about books and also feel comfortable to tell other people to leave the library, directly or indirectly. I hope not.
with the expressions of most ppls in the thread so far, i gather people would not be comfortable with someone as biased as me being a mod.
If you think that it is a hateful or bad or ignorant perspective for me to say that all cops are used as weapons to oppress people like me, and therefore i generalize all cops as bad violent people, maybe the only part of the conversation we can agree on is my bias. however, I want to be clear that i don't believe there can be such a thing as lack of bias. we are all informed in different ways. we are all biased.
(TBH i am toooo busy right now to volunteer, and also recovering from brain injury and old sexual assault trauma, related to above point about police.)
honestly, thoughtfully, and intentionally: i am biased. i am biased against expressions of hate, whether its expressed as an intellectual sounding debate instead of listening and believing someone's experience, or whether its a blatant statement. Im so excited to do what i can to make childhood and public space online less shitty for people than it was for me... and to make it more awesome instead.
...RAMBLES~! yeah the library example is not so good lmao but i hope at least some parts of this post contribute to this cool discussion you all are having :O
if yu read even half of this lmao thanx for your time i know this is a lot ://
thank you individuals for posting ideas sharing thoughts and feelings.
