Trigger Warning: In this post, I will discuss topics that can make some people uncomfortable; in particular readers who have themselves been the target of abuse, bullying, and disrespect in the past. (I apologize if I have omitted this Trigger Warning in previous posts that touched these topics.)
My previous post in the series: https://groups.google.com/g/sage-devel/c/OeN8o14s6Jc/m/ChnpijP3AgAJ, titled "I: How we talk about past, current, future contributions" appeared over a month ago. Unfortunately, this post has been met with a complete silence. I argue that this is but one symptom of a disease of our Sage community: The community has been severely damaged by toxicity, not just by the most recent excesses but already over a much longer term. Possible other symptoms: (1) The lack of visible diversity in our community. (2) Silence when harmful conduct is happening in plain sight. (3) The disengagement from matters of community, governance, leadership. I argue that we need active long-term steps to rebuild a healthy, inclusive community. Rebuilding our community has to be rooted in consideration for the weakest in our community, the voices that have already disappeared from our community, and for the targets of abuse, bullying, and disrespect. The question that we need to ask is: What is necessary so that they feel comfortable and empowered to participate? I argue that it has to start with - recognizing and acknowledging the existence and the asymmetric nature of abuse, bullying, and disrespect, - understanding the specific damage that all of these do on individuals (hint: targets of abuse do not just get "upset") and on our community, - learning about the techniques and mechanisms of abusers and abuse (for example: keeping plausible deniability and "playing the victim" are well-known parts of the tool set of abusers), - affirming as a community the goal of building an inclusive community in which abuse, bullying, aggression, disrespect, harassment are shunned. What is counterproductive: - Euphemisms such as describing abusive comments as a "heated discussion". - Well-meaning advice to targets of abuse to take a break. - Giving abusers the benefit of the doubt. - Reprimanding targets of abuse for calling out abuse. - Both-siding bullying with anti-bullying activism. Matthias -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sage-devel" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sage-devel/c23354f9-1ec0-4421-a495-1b0620faed4fn%40googlegroups.com.
