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Y/OUR DEPARTMENT

English version

The Hackerspace anti-Discrimination "Be Awesome To Each Other" Pledge

The purpose of this pledge is to address the issue of discrimination in our hacker communities. We, Hackers of the Universe, realize that discrimination of all forms is damaging to our efforts to build a viable community, and with the purpose of addressing the issue of discriminatory practices, we put forward this Pledge to Be Awesome to Each Other.

If you agree that there is no room for discrimination - of any kind - in the Hacker community, then please join us by signing this Pledge, and encouraging your friends and associates - and strangers too - to join in making Hacker spaces safe for people of all kinds.

Definition

DISCRIMINATION is the treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person based on the group, class, sex, or category to which that person belongs rather than on individual merit.

DISCRIMINATION is the unfair treatment of a person, sex, racial group, minority, etc., i.e. action based on prejudice.

Acknowledgements

There are safe spaces like the women and trans only hackerspace Miss Baltazar's laboratory[0] and these at times provide an environment that is only accessible to underrepresented groups such as woman. That is a good and valid thing since it helps to open our community to people that might otherwise never find access to it.

The issues pointed out by this petition are not exclusive to the hacker community and often have causes that are beyond our sphere of influence. This should not stop us from taking action against them. People have done so in the past and we have made progress in some fields.

Pledge

We, the undersigned, hereby Pledge:

  • to understand the meaning of discrimination as it has been defined in this Pledge, and to apply this meaning to our world with a common purpose of the removal of the effects of discrimination from our Group
  • to personally avoid discrimination as an operational social process in our personal actions, daily, and in our social involvement with others in the Hackerspace scene
  • to point out and dissuade any instance of discrimination in our environment, when we see it, such that it no longer prevents those being discriminated against from Hacking, learning, exploring as a part of our Group
  • to ensure that those who join us to Hack, to learn, explore, and engage the universe with technology, are allowed to do so in a fashion that makes them feel welcome, able, and willing to be there, participating with those they choose to work with in Hacking the Universe
  • to engage those who would discriminate, with courage and conviction, such that doing so does not result in creating the very condition of discrimination (against them) that we are attempting to repair
  • to encourage and inspire others to reduce Discrimination where they see it, actively and as a regular requirement of participation
  • to enlighten, never persecute, no matter how much patience that may require
  • to continue to promote the purpose of freedom from discrimination to all people, whatever and whoever they are, and to allow those who are willing to explore, engage and Hack the Universe to feel safe in doing so in our Hacker Space
  • to Be Excellent To Each Other, wherever and whoever we are

Signatures ...

German version

The Hackerspace anti-Discrimination "Be Awesome To Each Other" Pledge

Bekenntnis zum Bestreben nach diskriminierungsfreien Hackerspaces [better translation for this anyone?]

Das Ziel dieser Erklärung ist es, das Problem der Diskriminierung in unseren Hacker Communities anzusprechen. Wir, Hackerinnen und Hacker des Universums, erkennen, dass Diskriminierung in all ihren Ausprägungen unseren Bemühungen eine inspirierende Gemeinschaft zu schaffen, schadet. Mit dieser Petition wollen wir die Probleme, die durch diskriminierende Handlungen hervorgerufen werden, anerkennen und Menschen in Hackerspaces dazu aufrufen, respekt- und liebevoll miteinander umzugehen.

Wenn auch du der Meinung bist, dass in der Hacker Community kein Platz für jegliche Form von Diskriminierung ist, dann schließe dich uns bitte an, indem du diese Petition unterzeichnest. Ermuntere auch deine Freunde, Bezugspersonen und Fremde mitzuhelfen, Hackerspaces zu sicheren und einladenden Räumen für alle Menschen zu machen.

Definition

Diskriminierung bezeichnet positives oder negatives Beurteilen von und Verhalten gegenüber Menschen aufgrund deren Zugehörigkeit zu einem bestimmten Geschlecht, einer sozialen Gruppe, oder einer anderen Kategorie, anstatt eines Verhaltens, das auf individuellen Charakteristika basiert.

Diskriminierung ist die Ungleichbehandlung einer Person, eines Geschlechts, einer ethnischen Gruppe, einer Minderheit, etc., aufgrund von Vorurteilen gegenüber dieser Gruppe.

Erklärung

Wir, die Unterzeichner*Innen dieser Petition, erklären hiermit:

  • dass wir die Bedeutung des Begriffes „Diskriminierung“ verstehen, so wie er in dieser Erklärung definiert wurde und uns in unserer Umgebung dafür einsetzen, die Auswirkungen von Diskriminierung zu minimieren.
  • to personally avoid discrimination as an operational social process in our personal actions, daily, and in our social involvement with others in the Hackerspace scene
  • dass wir Diskriminierung als einen operationalen sozialen Prozess [ev. bessere Formulierung für operational social process] in unseren eigenen Handlungen und in Interaktion mit anderen, besonders in der Hacker Community, zu unterlassen.
  • dass wir jegliche Form von Diskriminierung aufzeigen werden, wenn wir eine solche erleben. Wir werden dies tun, damit jene, die von diskrimierendem Verhalten betroffen sind, nicht davon abgehalten werden, als ein Teil unserer Gruppe zu hacken, zu lernen und zu entdecken.
  • dass wir allen Menschen, die mit uns hacken, lernen, entdecken und sich in die Welt der Technologien vertiefen möchten, in einer Art und Weise begegnen, die ihnen vermittelt, dass sie willkommen sind. Wir wollen allen in unserer Community das Gefühl geben, dass sie fähig sind, das zu tun, was sie tun möchen und dass sie die Freiheit haben, sich die Menschen auszusuchen, mit denen sie arbeiten möchten.
  • dass wir jenen, die andere diskriminieren, mit Courage und Überzeugung gegenübertreten. Dabei vermeiden wir, eine Diskriminierung gegen über jenen zu begehen, die sich unangemessen verhalten haben.
  • dass wir andere dazu ermuntern und inspirieren wollen, sich aktiv gegen Diskriminierung einzusetzen, wann immer sie eine solche miterleben.
  • dass wir Menschen aufklären, sie aber niemals schikanieren wollen, egal wie viel Geduld uns das abverlangen mag.
  • dass wir uns auch in Zukunft dafür einsetzen werden, Freiheit - und das heißt besonders auch Freiheit von Diskriminierung - für alle zu fordern und zu fördern, egal wer sie sind. Wir möchten dass alle, die in unserem Hackerspace Dinge erforschen, entwickeln und hacken wollen, sich dabei sicher und geschätzt fühlen können.
  • dass wir respekt- und liebevoll miteinander umgehen wollen, egal mit wem wir interagieren.

Unterschriften...


bits and pieces

Collection of statements to add/points to make/text fragments/…:

We are diverse in many aspects, but when we as a community tolerate sexist / racist / homophobic etc. notions, we exclude a lot of people. And if the question is, whether I want to exclude those who are being insulted or those who are insulting others, the answer is clear to me. [Wir sind in vielen Dimensionen divers, aber dadurch, dass wir (as in: The Community) sexistische / rassistische / homophobe Kackscheiße tolerieren, schließen wir eine Menge Menschen aus. Und wenn die Frage ist, ob ich die, die angepöbelt werden oder die die anpöbeln ausschließen will, ist für mich die Antwort klar.] The Community is not only diverse in terms of their members social positionings. People have different approaches and points of interest to hacking culture. Yet, the dominant image of what the "real hacker" looks like and what they do is very narrow and implicates, that people who don't fit this image are not perceived as legitimate members of the community. We're committed to changing this aspect. [Die Community ist nicht nur hinsichtlich der sozialen Positionen ihrer Mitglieder divers. Es gibt verschiedene Zugänge und Interessen an Hacker_innenkultur. Das vorherrschende Bild davon, wie ein_e „echter Hacker“ aussieht und was er_sie tut ist allerdings sehr eng und bringt mit sich, dass Leute, die diesem Bild nicht entsprechen, nicht als legitime Mitglieder der Community wahrgenommen werden. Wir setzen uns dafür ein, das zu ändern.]

Q: https://twitter.com/johl/status/287286220093001730 -- johl: Once the rockets are up, who cares who is included, that's not my department. A: We care, and it's (all) our department

points to make

Purpose of petition:

  • Acknowledge some facts
    • That as a community we are a social group and have to take care of each other
    • The issue of sexism, and general homogeneity of the community
    • The importance of the issue and what harm sexism and other forms of discrimination do to the community
    • The time and people that have fought this so far
    • That some people feel safe and happy (and that's great) but some don't (but we want them to and so we need to work on ourselves)
    • The trigger that was 29c3
    • The great parts of our community
    • Other people/spaces/conferences may be worse but that's not an excuse not to try and improve the concerns you face
    • Denying a problem because you're not affected is not cool (solidarity and mutual aid!)
    • We need many solutions to many problems, and judging each others solutions isn't a productive way to take care of each other
    • That there are positive examples of how to deal with this
    • The hacker community can be amazingly supportive of its members
  • Define some terms
    • Sexism
    • Feminism
    • Harassment
    • Otherization
    • Rape culture? (more cans with more worms?)
    • “sexistische Kackscheiße”
    • what a “safe space” is
    • DefMa and/or community accountability
    • Mansplaining
  • Pledge to incorporate the following points in the future
    • commitment to making hackerspaces safe spaces
    • Calling out behaviours which are discriminatory
    • Propose or point to ways of how to deal with the above (LINKS? Geekfeminism+Wiki, Hackerequality, femgeeks, )
    • Keeping a constructive dialogue active
  • Propose places to discuss issues
    • hackerequality.org + mailing list?
    • Safe space meetings/lectures at hackerspaces?

meta

sources

29C3 Anti-Harassment Policy. Retrieved January 6, 2013 from https://events.ccc.de/congress/2012/wiki/29C3_Anti-Harassment_Policy (Originally posted by Julia on Nov 8th, some edits, final version december 27th)

Aurora, Valerie. (2013, January 2). Ending sexism in hacker culture: A work in progress. Retrieved January 6, 2013 from http://adainitiative.org/2013/01/ending-sexism-in-hacker-culture-a-work-in-progress/

Opening Event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&list=UUG4QMB95FR6Df6XdQwn8gSg&v=EF4nv5Ks_dk#t=471s [bios speaking:] if you happen to be in some kind of emergency or if you touch the wrong end of the soldering iron we have a medical team no standby, they are down next to the cash desk [ Slide reads: Emergencies of all kinds 

 * Medical issues: Call 112 or 911. Via DECT!
 * Abuse & Harassment: Call 113
 * Also provides deescalation services

] but you can call them, you can call 112 or 911 but please make sure that you are on DECTS. dont call 112 on GSM if you're bored and need someone to hang out! (some laughter) yeah. apparently that has happened before. new this year - we had it last year but I don't think it was organized such as this year - we have an.. we have the network abuse team, so if you're on the steram and happen to be a network provider and something strange has happened to your network and you suspect that we're to blame, i think the full page for abuse handling is also online or check the RIPE entry. you probably know what to do. but we also have some some abuse and anti-harrassment - so not-harrassment - team. (some laughter) they are available at 113 and they also provide deescalation services if you have some problems or if something strange is happening just give them a call and they will talk to you and we'll try to help you and hopefully we'll help you. (applause).


Closing Event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8IPBmEUV7o&list=UUG4QMB95FR6Df6XdQwn8gSg&feature=player_detailpage#t=1675s

[bios + frank rieger, frank rieger speaking:] so we had this year also a team caring for abuse of other things, namely harrassment, that was the awareness team they were around to help people when they felt mistreated or abused or harrassed in some way. they said they had about 20 calls on the hotline one warning was actually issused one person removed from the premises because of behaviour. we also removed one nazi from the premises. (big applause)

the feedback from the awareness team was they felt that their work was worthwhile and that was good. thanks to the awareness team for that.


so to just clean up this misunderstanding: theses green and red and yellow cards that have been discussed so much were not the work of the awareness team and were not the work of the organizers. that was some people who felt them necessary but my personal opinion is it's not really necessary to import this kind of thing to our conferences. (big appluase) because we care for your safety and we care for if anybodys feeling harrassed and we don't need stupid cards for that, thanks. (big applause)


preceding metalab discussion

Metalab Genderdebatte Protokolle - 03/01/2013

- * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * -

Genderissues and 29C3

Beginn: 18:17 Ende: 21:34 Teilnehmer: ca. 20-30 Leute

Adam aus Australien bittet darum, auf englisch zu diskutieren. Wir einigen uns darauf, dass wir mischen können. Wer auf deutsch reden will, kann das machen, aber idealerweise sollten wir auf englisch reden.

Bernhard asks if people are familiar with using hand signs. He explains signs for agreement, I want to say something, I disagree, fundamental concerns, I want to answer ad hoc.

Msch wants to know, if that means we won't be able to interrupt? And have a moderator.

Mihi asks, why the moderator should be a male person.

Jasmin volunteers for moderation.

Kay wants to know who takes minutes? Gabi does. Kay was asked by someone of CCC if we were going to take minutes so we can share them with them.

Jasmin makes an introduction. There have been some incidents, that provoced discussions about the issue of sexism. On the interne there was a very long discussion about the whole topic. Emi wanted to write a message about it to CCC.

Grenz wants to know who is against writing this message and why. Why shouldn't we do this?

Isis thinks we shouldn't do it, because we don't have it in our statuten (bylaws). There's nothing about harassment in it. We as metalab don't exactly have this point of view.

Grenz asks, if there's anyone who says, that sexism is a cool thing? He wonders, why there's a discussion at all.

Georg agrees with Isis and overflo. Metalab is a diverse place with different opinions. He thinks every single member would have to sign it, elsewise it wouldn't be the metalab.

Isis thinks we need a policy for the metalab. There should be consequences if people harass others. First there should be a policy, then we should make a statment. On the mailinglist, there was about 20-30 % about 29C3, the rest was about "There's no problem."

M. is not against sending a statment, but he has a problem with the discussion. He was at hacker jepoardy. He didn't exactly hear, what was said, but he saw the moderator being given the red card. He thinks the story wasn't that big. "Sexismus-Keule". Maybe it could be overpowered to send this statement.

Msch says there has already been a message from metalab about hackerspace-related stuff. The issue isn't about CCC in special, but in general.

Helmuth wants to have an introduction bevor speaking, so one can relate to each other.

Grenz has heard the argument, we are a diverse culture, so we can't agree on points. He doesn't understand, why the argument of diversity is the one where bullshit happens. People are killing discussions by saying "We're so diverse, we can't say even that." He's pissed off by that.

tKolar wants to relate to msch, talking about the statement that has already been sent. He doesn't necessarily agree with the way it was decided to send that message. He thinks, we shouldn't have an official statement without voting on it.

Mihi is the real issue that we don't have a procedure for sending statements?

m68k: political, yes.

msch thinks the metalab had a general assembly where the metalab can send statements if it was about hackerspaces, but not if it was general political content.

pepi didn't get the handsign-introduction. So did some others. Bernhard goes over it again.

msch wants to go back to the diversity-question. There's a dimension to it, where people are excluded. We should ask ourselves, whom we want: the excluding or the excluded? He's pro the excluded.

Georg thinks that minor incidents get mixed up with major ones. Dumme Sprüche sind nicht auf dem gleichen Niveau, wie andere Sachen. Dort wo Sexismus stattfindet, muss man was machen. Aber das sollte kein Vorwand sein, um herumzutrollen.

Emi answers direct. The discussion started with serious incidents. It got derailed into hackerjeopardy.

Stefanie wasn't at congress, but they had a general discussion about a year ago, that we would pick up big signs about sexism to make more awareness. There should have been persons to talk to if something happens to not have to escalate stuff yourself.

Isis glaubt, dass das, was der Georg gesagt hat der Knackpunkt ist. Sie widerspricht. Einzelne Incidents sagen Leute ja eh gleich "Das darf nicht sein". Dafür gibt es Gesetze. Das wahre Problem sind viele Kleinigkeiten, wo man immer wieder gesagt oder zu spüren bekommt, dass man dumm ist, putzen soll oder Frauentätigkeiten blöd sind… Es ist wichtig, genau da eine Policy zu finden, weil Leute genau da nicht wissen, wie man sich verhalten soll. Die gleichen Personen in unterschiedlichen Stimmungen verhalten sich anders. Die Person, die belästigt wird, kommt in Erklärungsnotstand, warum die Sache schlimm ist. Man muss die Seximsus-Sachen immer wieder neu aufrollen. Es geht auch um sexuelle Orientierungen.

m68k sagt die Policy gibts schon, man könne Personen dazu auffordern, das Metalab zu verlassen. Es gibt ein Hausrecht und man kann Leute zum Gehen auffordern.

meta sagt, das stimmt so nicht. Wir haben nur gesagt, man kann Leute verweisen, aber es gibt keine Regeln außer Common Sense.

grenz says, this is exactly the problem. Common sense doesn't always work. The perspective is most of the time male. "I didn't really do something wrong." Some guy was standing on the aisle and petted a girl's hair. He said: "I didn't do something wrong! I was just being nice to her…" The common ground is, that we are nice to each other and all and that's something we like, that grenz likes, but suddenly people defend the hacker community just for the sake of defending it.

Adam thinks not everybody has the confidence to go up to somebody to say that they think their behaviour is not acceptable. Adam himself does that. He thinks the cards are a way of doing it though.

Maria is not sure if we should send an open letter to CCC in the sense of "You did something wrong", but we should write a letter in genereal on this topic.

Emi has two things: One is related to throwing poeple out. That's much harsher than giving someone a card. To ask somebody to leave on one comment is very harsh.

Bernhard thinks it's not always an appropriate way because then there's no way to apologize or reflect. You won't necessarily learn something from that.

Adam wants to make a note on apologies. Not everybody wants to be apologized to. That might be wanted sometimes but it's not always the case. If they want an apology they should get one if not then not.

Msch wants to know why we should teach people minimum standards of behaviour.

grenz because it is happening all the time everywhere. He doesn't want to generalize, but there are members in hacker community that have problems with basic social skills.

Adam: If you send them away, where else are they going to learn?

Bernhard: We would have been expelled already. We wouldn't learn anything. We should be able to learn from each other.

Grenz: Why?

Bernhard: Because he has a very different worldview…

Mzeltner: It's derailing right now… Go back to discussion. Metalab is not a safe space. It considers itself to be open, to certain degrees. There's going to be tons of battlegrounds. He hopes we can settle this in the future, he hopes we're going to have the opportunity…

Emi's second point is related to something jasmin said. Statements said by official persons, like thos of Congress have a certain weight.

c3o sees several topics: Are we against sexism? Was there sexism at Congress? Do we want to send a statement? How should we handle such situations in the future? What can we improve here at metalab? Does everyone agree to have a show of hands to on what are we going to discuss?

Jasmin: Everyone has one vote?

c3o thinks everyone should have as many votes as they want.

Grenz thinks we don't need to discuss whether we are against sexism. He hopes we sure are…

c3o proceeds in the voting. The three last ones are the most popular ones.

Adam thinks the question is, how the statment should be sent. Should it be put on a blog? Sending a message to CCC about the congress?

Jasmin wants to finish the speakers list we had, before going over to what c3o suggested.

grenz has a direct question: Sending out a message as metalab opposed to sending a message as a group of about 40 people? Like a petition, people can sign as opposed to "We are the metalab?"

Msch thinks this is part of "Do we want to send a statement?"

Mzeltner wants to react to m68k: Asking somebody to leave is a huge empowerement. It's hard to take this. It has been so annoying to him, it takes much energy, everybody hates you for doing it. Speaking out about something is wrong is incredibly hard. Asking somebody out should not be the only option, but just the heavily escalated one.

Stefanie would like to focus on what we can do here now? It's precious time for there are many people here. She doesn't really know what the card did. Maybe sometimes people just want to say "Stop talking to me, I want to work." Most harassment happens between people who know each other very well. It's hard to defend yourself or speak up. We should have a way of dealing with it in a formal way. Maybe the cards are stupid, but they are a way.

Grenz: Which cards did exist? Was it the same as defcon?

[Some]: Yes.

Bernhard: part of what was written on them was pretty offensive.

Kay: Green card: Thanks for speaking up and Zivilcourage.

- * - * - * -

c3o lists the topics again. How to handle such things at metalab in the future should be the shortest, we should do this one first, maybe.

Isis thinks we should first discuss on what we want to improve in metalab first. Das hat ja einen Einfluss darauf, was in so einem Statement drinstehn könnte

Pepi thinks it's not important if at all we send a message to CCC. He thinks we should focus on what we can improve here and now and CCC has a year to change things.

c3o how can we come up with rules for sending a statement in general? Not about congress in special.

Adam thinks that's bikeshedding. People want to have a discussion about how to have a safe space.

L. thought we'd have a decision from a General Assembly.

meta says there was just a consensus on one statement. We would only make statements that directly to hackerspace-relevant stuff.

Andy Congress is not a hackerspace.

Grenz it's about hacker-culture. He thinks there should be a message sent. He doesn't care if it's "We are the metalab" or "I sign this, and I am part of metalab". It's a statement for the whole world.

Mihi thinks we don't have to discuss anymore whether or not to send a message. We want to send a message.

Amir thinks the one statement we sent out wasn't political. It was a support statement. He agrees on sending a petition, but he disagrees doing it in the name of metalab.

Bernhard agrees with sending a petition. Almost everybody agrees with it. If the petition solves this issue and serves the goal, then it's okay if it is a petition. It does the same. That could be a shortcut to the discussion. Wenn wir jetzt den Petition-Vorschlag machen und niemand ist dagegen, dann brauchen wir nicht über "Senden wir das als Metalab" diskutieren.

Grenz hat den Vorschlag gebracht, damit wir nicht Zeit verlieren.

Msch es ist 19:04 und wir sollten Macht an die Moderatorin geben, damits schneller geht.

Isis wants to go back to the topics. Maybe the petition-thing changes something.

Pepi is in favor of the petition-thing. Everybody can decide if they are pro or not.

Mzeltner argued pro metalab as a group. Metalab is made up of people. If enough people sign it, it is basically the same.

c3o the thing about sending a statement or not is not being discussed. How to handle statments in future is not being discussed that way.

Gabi wants to have a vote between sending a petition or as an institution.

Emi thinks these options are not excluding each other.

Grenz: Two questions petition or metalab and then if metalab should sign that petition.

Mihi thinks the question is: petition yes or no.

There's a conensus on having a petition.

Amir wants to know if we are going to meet again to consent on the content of the petition.

Grenz wants to do this in a wiki.

Mihi: etherpad.

Adam so what about signing the petition as metalab?

meta thinks we should stop dicsussing about signing the petition as metalab as long as there is no petition.

Jasmin the question now is: What are possible improvements at metalab?

Mihi thinks we should use this possibility to have our own policy against harassment. The events at Congress could inspire us to do this right now.

Andy thinks we need arguments so you could explain to people why this is bad. He wants some kind of coaching for people what to say.

Amir wants to do a workshop tomorrow to have lazzzored cards for the opposite thing of creeper cards. Promoting different behaviour by leap cards. Tomorrow at 6 pm.

L. says there's a positive card.

Amir thinks there should be more positive cards. You can choose what's on the card, but it should be positive in the name of advancement of the human race.

Pepi wants to say about the creeper cards that they caused more problems than they solved, because they were not explained to anyone. He disagrees with the very negative wording of the red cards. He wants positive cards and gamification.

Grenz: Fuck gamification!

meta thinks leap cards are adressing a different problem.

stefanie says this is absolutely not about a game. It's about persons to get help and a safe place. She wants to know, what she can do in a certain situation.

tKolar wants a sexistische kackscheiße button.

Gabi: smells like gamification.

Amir says that cards ware not able to adress that issue. He thinks they were designed for another purpose.

Grenz of course you can hack that system. people hit on girls to get cards. The signal of red cards for people to see me holding a red card up is a group-situation. People around her should see what's happening. It's a community-statement. He doesn't care what's written on it. It can be a red card without any content.

Asta: Assholes are going to be assholes no matter if cards are explained or not. We all recognize that it went really wrong. She thinks there must be a different solution than cards. Es geht nicht darum, wie wer ausschaut, welches Geschlecht jemand hat, sie versteht auch nicht, was falsch gelaufen ist.

Stefanie wants to hit in the same point. If somebody gives you a card and it becomes a game, than it's not making any sense. If the card brings out the courage in the community, it does make sense. Elsewhise not.

Bernhard: The cards didn't work because people didn't understand them. We are sitting here to discuss why they didn't work. Why did this intervention fail.

Anna thinks the cards don't work because that's not how people communicate. She doesn't want to feel like a nerd by holding up a card.

Adam they partially worked, because you have a big group of people discussing them.

Grenz thinks the cards work because … he skips.

Mzeltner: To Anna – it's great she feels empowered, but it's not a solution for people who feel empowered. The thing worked in terms of people starting to discuss them. They weren't advertised or "allowed"… all the stuff that has to do with sexism at congress is a failure of communication.

wizard thinks the cards worked, but they weren't communicated to people. Finally he understood them and they might work, but without explanation they won't work.

Anna but how do you want to put it in practice here? You always have to carry them with you?

Gabi wants to have a break of 15 minutes. Broad consensus.

15 minute break

Jasmin says we'll make some changes. Instant comments are not possible anymore. There'll just be a speaker's list.

meta wants to keep it for one short sentence.

Jasmin argues against that.

Adam if she's strong enough she should cut off people after one sentence.

Jasmin does moderation for her first time so she wants to skip instant comments. We're now discussing what to do to improve the situation at metalab.

Mihi wanted to do exactly that. He suggests to stick to what we decided at earlier meetings. Come up with a way to handle this as a community. How can someone who feels threatened handle that?

Adam wanted to make this as a first point, move the discussion to the ideas people have about improvement. There was also a discussion about the petition, people should get on the speakers list, if they have suggestions about how and when this is going to happen.

Bernhard thinks that doesn't go far enough. He wants to talk about culture and what we want to be. There's an oppurtunity that shows itself now. Sexism is a subtle and latent thing. It's something that we need to deal with and confront ourselves with. He used to say he's not affected by this. It's a non-issue. That's simply not true. That's especially not true, if there are rules. If people feel violated by what you say you can say: You're not allowed to make jokes about women. We should teach people to be sensible. "Be excellent to each other" was the key sentence on the mailing list.

Isis thinks it's very important that the policy should be written down. The last gender issue meeting was just about people interested in it. We should make it binding for other people. Isis sees a huge consensus. It should be written down "Don't make jokes about women". Sometimes it's okay to make such jokes. But there's so few people who have the empathy to know when it's okay to do that. Also there should be a clearly written policy. Throwing somebody out should be on the list, but not as the first step.

Grenz final word to the creeper card thing. It doesn't work in hackerspaces. It's for congress, for that's not a safe space. Here should be a safe space. Whenever something happens, write an immediate protocoll onto the mailing list. That gives a little dimension to what's happening and to and by whom. To a certain extent that has to be discussed beyond in here.

Meep feminism might be the wrong word for this context, but the problem is not open sexism. It's really rare for women to be physically assaulted or get really bad comments. She doesn't get offend by everything that contains latent sexism in it. It just accumulates. It creates an uncomfortable atmosphere. She doesn't like the idea of writing an e-mail. There are two possible bad responses. "Why in the world are you making an issue of this small thing?!" or a negative response for the offender. If everything is written on the list it may happen that it is seen as intentional, even if it is not.

Georg wants to know about the harassments who did them. Wenn Leute neu herkommen, dann lesen sie auch die Policy nicht. Insofern macht das wenig Sinn.

Pepi wants adding something to Isis demand of writing down a policy. It's about discrimination in general. We should not target this as a certain form of discrimination.

Steinbrenner thinks sexism is a subproblem. The real problem is how you interact with people who have different beliefs and everything. If you say "Don't make jokes about women?" it's going to provoke many questions like "What about blacks" asf. We should decide if we want more diversity here and then enforce it. We should take active steps for diversity.

Isis wants to answer Georg's question. It's both. There are less jokes when they're friends. But it's still both and what really gets her is, that when the discussion about sexism pops up, also some of the regulars show that they don't know about it and that they don't think it's an important problem. That's just as big a problem as harassment itself. It's like those subtle comments that make women uncomfortable. There has not to be a distinction in regulars or newcomers.

Stefanie agrees on this, that it is an underlying atmosphere. It's not always conscience, we are socialized to behave in certain ways. This discussion is important exactly because of this. She doesn't want to educate everyone who's harassing her. She wants to know how this can be a safe space. She knows there are many marginalized groups, but right now it should be about women.

Amir thinks tracking of incidents is important, then having particular rules on how to behave. Those two ideas don't make sense themselves, but if you combine them, they do. Reporting incidents is hard to do. Together this could end up in tracking examples of behaviour that are shown to be inaproppriate. Maybe we could do this in a wiki to track what's inaproppriate.

Grenz about mailing list… he's a huge fan of Noisebridge. What they are doing there, with a high-traffic-mailing list like our interne. If something is not excellent, it is posted on the mailing list. If it is not excellent to let the lazzzor turned on, then they would write it. Why shouldn't there be discussions on our mailinglist about topics like sexism? At noisebridge they did that for a long time. It get's less and less frequent because people start to be getting the point. There is a certain factual "Hey, that works!"

Msch wants to answer to Gregor: Wenn jemand reinkommt und er kennt sich nicht aus und wird rausgeworfen. Wenn jemand neu ist, wird ihm erklärt, worums geht und erst beim zweiten Mal wird er rausgeworfen, wenn er nicht belehrbar ist. He wants active steps to have more diverese people here. Have somebody anonymized enter stuff into a log. He would like metalab to be a safe space.

S. says most of the time it is not a direct jokes. At least for him he's most of the time not noticing he's doing something wrong. Finding a rule-set to write that down is hard. Having things on the mailing list is like finger pointing to resolve on a personal basis. That's not going to help give a nice climate in the space. He'd be really careful with naming people directly.

Bernhard: First about grenz: It's a good idea on the surface. But only for things that are easily punishable. You should be educated about your deviation. He was guilty about this in the past and is trying to be improving about this to see what others' reactions to his words are. We as men are told to not give a damn about what other people think. It's about putting other people down. That's what feminism says and it's part of the game. What we are trying to change is, how can we achieve excellence with each other? He's not going to randomly kick people out. We need to establish a culture that enables people to feel safe. Certain kind of respect for other people, that's a hard thing to educate to people. Establishing a rule-set is not going to do this, even though it is necessary. The punishments should be social. and not physical. If somebody harasses you physically, you should be able to throw them out.

Emi thinks the discussion is not ready for his point right now.

Steinbrenner thinks its important to have a culture of being able to make errors. It's also important that we … harrassment and jokes aren't always done on purpose. When somebody damages a tool or hurts sombody's feelings… is it their fault? Is it our fault? It would be very good if we had a code of conduct, everybody could sign.

Stefanie appreciates the thoughts of Steinbrenner, but she doesn't agree. It's not something technical like turning off a lazzzor. It's a social problem. Every person who is hurt, is right. You can't tell them to not feel hurt, because they do. If somebody feels offended, they need to be listened to and taken serious. She wouldn't always want everybody to know what happened to her, for she might be shy about it.

Isis thinks it's right to say it's not about writing down "No jokes about women". A wiki for incidents might be good. She has only become a feminist at metalab. Before she thought there'd be no problem, for if she acted like she was equal, she'd be. Most people don't know there's a problem. There shouldn't be punishment at first. At first there should be a discussion and the social skills as a community should work, not necessarily the person that feels offended.

Grenz agrees with Stefanie. The person that gets hurt has… different people have different ways to deal with things. In Noisebridge it worked very well. But things happened like: This happened to me. People were also reacting like "Why are you posting this at all?" If we can't define rules, for it is hard, we could find another way to have more awareness. Something like the mailinglist-discussion yesterday: If there was someone saying in person "There are anthropological-biological constant!" … well, there's a certain end to a discussion. Of course you can make mistakes. But it's not necessarily the same thing as being punished.

Msch wants to have anonymized msgs. Inclusion means exclusion. We can include people that don't know how to behave, or those who are harrassed. He suggests Stefanie could help make a safe space out of metalab. He wants to invite somebody who's into the whole gender-stuff to hold a workshop at metalab.

meta doesn't thinkg that the tools we use is important. What about people that feel in danger right now, like Stefanie said. Should we protect the offended or educate the offender?

Adam talks about White Ribbon day. Police Force, asf. There's a wristband saying "I will stand up against inappropriate behaviour against women" (look that one up). It's helping him. Maybe there should be repeated meetings to talk about the problems that there are, to help each other build confidence to talk about it.

Meep thinks it's really hard to call someone up. If anything happens and the person gets offended. If the person doesn't want to call the person out, somebody else schould do it. One important thing in doing that is knowing, that the community is behind you. Writing out some general rules would help with that. So it would be a good idea to write down stuff like "Be excellent to each other" or "If somebody feels offended, he or she has the right to be offended and the right to be listened to." If I feel comfortable somwhere it is easier to call out on someone. It would be a good idea to make the tracking anonymous, but if somebody is a repeated offender, then there should be more than talking to the person.

Pepi is in favor of anonymously collecting things that happen here without blaming certain persons, so people won't say "There's no problem". Also it's not about punishing people, but helping them see it and behave in another way. He's unsure how good the Noisebridge-appear would be working at metalab. The issue-tracker is helping, so heÄs all for trying this.

Emi thinks there are 2 things we could do. First find some workshops that promote women in the hacker culture. This might take a long time, but it might be very helpful. Second he would be willing to run a monthly meetup on this topic. This might be interesting to keep track on the topic. Maybe also for new people to gently send to.

tKolar wants to say something about exclusion. About "Whenever you're offended you're right because you are offended" – but being offended does not imply the right to get support by people, because… for example if you say "The way you breathe offended me, get away" … that's not right. There needs to be some kind of thing to say this is not a personal conflict. "I am offended" is a very subjective statement. Tying that into a official statement seems to be not the right thing. Second he'd like to discuss the culture-thing where it isn't tolerated by metalab as a community… Repression in the sense of not doing something about the actual problem… We should collectively say ""I'm going to try to stand up for other people if I think that something is offensive to someone, even if it doesn't offend me."

Steinbrenner if somebody is offended by "you kissed a black person" that would be a problem. That is why we are going to agree on… He didn't want to say that breaking a tool is the same like hurting a person, but those are problems that are connected. If I hurt somebody's feelings I don't care about their feelings. The same goes for tools, that they don't care about the tools. There could be anonymous statistics to show that there is a problem. He would like to say that we are about which mailing list it should be and which way… He has mixed feelings about this. We demand a lot of transperancy of other people. But if something breaks here, we keep it to ourselves on the internal mailing list. Maybe being transparent would be more authentic and would encourage people.

Helmuth wants to react to S.. In the organisation he's working at, there's an Ombudsmann to help both parties their positions. There's another person to say anonymously that there was a certain problem.

Amir: thinks it's a good idea to not make it about punishment asf. Most of the time it is not malicious intention, but lack of understanding or misunderstanding. Make victims as well as offenders to give them a kind of timeout to talk about everything.

Isis is now for the Mailinglist thing, for we all have a problem with making mistakes. If it comes to the point of talking about "That bad person!" But we make mistakes all the time. Maybe if we post it that people get used to problems so that there can be a more productive environment. So by tracking sexist incidents people could get used to the fact, there really is a problem with harassment and sexism. Maybe all that "Oh come on, that's nothing" would stop then.

Andi thinks there is an argument from the organisation from 29C3 like "Oh there are some feminazis who don't know the culture and are destroying everythin" Maybe just for procotoll we should say how many people feel like the hacker culture is "our home". Something for the protocoll like "We are the people, that are in this culture."

Gabi had some questions to this, but we were derailing.

S. thinks we don't need a written down guideline. There should be people to talk to. We shouldn't have mails like "You did something terribly wrong." He wants some kind of trusted persons to talk to like "Will help, will guide". Based on what happened there should be an according action.

Stefanie thinks her comments might sound fuzzy for there's so much she wants to say. She explains Miss Baltazars. They were meeting at Metalab in the past. There was a lot of gazing and watching and people were kind, but they were eavesdropping and helping at every opportunity – without being asked for it. They moved to MQ then to escape that. This helped in the beginning. She suggests that men who are uncertain how to act towards women should have a group of men only to talk about this topic. Maybe there should be talks about topics like "Non-violent communications". She thinks we replicate forms of violence like gazing, watching asf. Only if there's constant attention on certain topics, then we would be able to handle such stuff. She had a point in her life (Sweden, NYC) where she realized what it's like to be treated like a person instead of being treated like a woman. At the beginnin when she came to metalab she felt like she was not part of the group. "Why is she working with Arduinos" asf. At some point she started to feel comfortable. "patronizing" does not exist in german that way. "social cloning" if you can identify with a group you'll feel like you're part of it. If there's noone in the group you can identify with, you won't be able to be part of it. At some point in metalab there was a point where a woman was harassed and it was said that it happened for she was drunk.

Pepi wants to get back to tKolar. You can not argue about feelings. There's no arguing about it. You can not argue about proven fact. You can only argue about opinions. He's very much in favor of workshops. Maybe in the frame of the metaday.

Grenz is in favor of having more workshops on that kind of stuff. We can keep talking about inclusionism on and an, but there's so many males. There was a study between male and female … which is their greates fear. males: feeling alienated. femals: being killed. That's a perspective that we grow up in. Having the mindset of fearing to be killed is a very different perspective than feeling alienated. People see things in a different way. To realize that helps a lot.

Msch likes "Stand up for other people". He personally always finds long talks like metalab boring, but the person he already mentioned might as well talk at the metaday.

Jasmin collected some suggestions how we can go on:

  • Tracking incidents, anonymously or mailinglist
  • Monthly meetup
  • Lectures about Gender
  • Non-Violent Communication
  • This should not be only about women but all minority groups

Isis demands a break before discussing about what is most important.

15 minute break

Jasmin fasst nochmal zusammen: Wir machen eine Petition, die jeder unterzeichnen kann.

Clemens meint, wir sollten das nicht direkt an den CCC schicken.

Mzeltner würde den Congress als Trigger nennen.

c3o: Nicht "Lieber CCC", meinst du?

Maria: Vielleicht schadets nicht, dass sich alle Leute vorher nochmal treffen. Vielleicht zuerst im Wiki sammeln?

Clemens: Hackathon als Kickoff?

Mzeltner ist dabei.

Anna: Wer darf unterschreiben?

Mehrstimmig: Alle.

Anna: Dann muss es auch verbreitet werden.

Emi: Jetzt ein wiki aufmachen wär vielleicht nicht sinnvoll. Kickoff-Meeting für einen grundlegenden Text wäre sinnvoll. Emi wird eine Mail an die Liste schreiben. Wenn wir eine Petition formulieren, wie machen wir das dann?

Jasmin: Das können wir beim Treffen besprechen, oder?

Emi: Wie machen wir das dann konkret? Machen wir das intern, unterschreibens und dann öffentlich ohne weitere Unterschriften oder öffentlich unterschreibbar?

Maria denkt, es sollte auch nach der Veröffentlichung noch unterschreibbar bleiben.

Clemens schlägt auch vor, dass in einem Wiki das zu entwickeln nicht so sinnvoll ist. Aber im Wiki könne man Unterschriften sammeln.

Emi: Hat jemand Erfahrungen mit Petitionen?

Jasmin will wissen, ob Adam Erfahrung hat.

Emi: Does anybody know somebody who does?

Gabi: Was is mim Andi?

Andi: Das was sie gemacht haben, ist eine ganz andre Thematik und ganz andres Thema.

Gabi meint, wir formulieren zuerst und dann was unterschreibbares.

Mzeltner meint, es gab mal von vibe! was mit "Von einem adäquaten Urheberrecht erwarte ich mir…" Man könnte da eine Duallösung machen.

Amir says we did something similar in the past, that worked very well. Maybe we could be doing that again.

Maria thinks we were discussing meeting on one day, a few people writing the text. Giving other people a chance to add some stuff would be good. Maybe there's a way to include additions to the final petition too.

Mzeltner erklärt nochmal genauer was es mit dem Zeug von vibe! damals auf sich hatte.

Ysi: If you want to make a place safe, there's a question of safety. This needs to be happening right when there's an incident. First thing would be to be sure, that when something happens, we get support from people who are there. Instint recognition would be important. Also there should be a team to talk to afterwards. One of the best ways to handle incidents is mediation. There should be two things: The petition and a mediation-team. Maybe not rules, but create a feeling of responsibility. Guidelines might come at a later point. Anonymous comments would be a good thing, if guidelines are broken several times, then there should be the possibility to act upon this.

Clemens is pro crowd-sourcing. What we want to achieve until the next event is to get our opinion out. It might be better on a smaller scale first.

Mzeltner the mediation thing has come up before. We need people for that. It's voluntary and he's been talking about that to several people before. He doesn't know anyone who does that.

Msch mentioned before a guy to do a workshop, probably for free.

c3o this person is studying gender studies in London.

Emi: What is the topic right now?

Jamsin: What needs to be done right now?

Emi is focussed on the petition right now. What about a timeframe?

Mzeltner thinks 10 days max. Because right now we have momentum for this.

Amir wants an incremental list for the petition. 1. Mzeltner: Draft for the petition 2. Meetup tomorrow

Emi wants to know if people have time tomorrow at 6 pm?

Stefan: Writing the petition or first meetup?

Emi both. Tomorrow 8 pm?

Kay enters the meetup into the calendar.

Stefan thinks the minutes are something different. Either we publish them for there are the actionable items in it or we say again what the points are that are important for us here at the metalab. Man könnte das aber auch auf die gender issue meetups verlegen.

Jasmin beschließt damit die Runde. Morgen gibt es ein Meetup, für alle die an der Petition mitschreiben wollen.

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