Talk:Participation

Archived Discussions

Proposed change

Tonight at the Horsham meeting, we proposed to make the introduction of this page no longer be part of the core beliefs and practices, so that we can edit it freely and add additional commentary to the page. The existing sections, "our policies on participation" (Proposed to say "becoming a participant"), and "removing participants" would be marked as core sections.

This change will become official in 8 days, if there are no objections. Sylvia 20:10, 8 April 2013 (CDT)

Oh, and the new section, "Record of participants"! Sylvia 09:35, 9 April 2013 (CDT)

This change has become official. Sylvia 15:54, 16 April 2013 (CDT)

Proposed edit

Also, tonight at the West Philly meeting, we proposed changing the introductory section's text to read:

Rather than identify members, we identify only participants. Participation fulfills some of the roles and functions that membership fills in some organizations, but is distinct in other ways.

Participants are given access to edit the wiki and contribute to discussions on the wiki.

If there are no objections this will go live after 8 days.Cazort 18:55, 4 April 2013 (CDT)

This change has become official. Sylvia 15:54, 16 April 2013 (CDT)

Proposed edit

Tonight at the West Philadelphia meeting we proposed changing the title of the section "Our Policies on Participation" to "Becoming a Participant" because "Policies on Participation" refers to the page as a whole and this section refers solely to our policies on becoming a participant.

If there are no objections this will also go live after 8 days.Cazort 18:55, 4 April 2013 (CDT)

This change has become official. Sylvia 15:54, 16 April 2013 (CDT)

Deletion

Per consensus at the Philadelphia meeting we removed the phrase "any notion of membership" from the beginning section because we felt that it was dishonest and that it violated the rules of communication, which are grounds for immediate removal. We are in the process of rewording and better defining the introductory statement.

Proposed addition: new Section: Record of participants

Tonight at the Horsham meeting we proposed adding a new section, titled "Record of participants". It would have the following two points:

• Participants can choose to be listed on our list of participants. Do not add people to this list without their consent.
• People are not required to be on our list of participants in order to be considered participants.

We didn't specify at the meeting where this section would be added. I don't have strong feelings about where to add them but I'd be inclined to include them as the second or middle section, after "Our policies on participation". If anyone wants them placed at the end of the page instead, I'd also be fine with that. These additions will become live if there are no objections after 8 days. Since the list is part of the general wiki, we can start creating the list before then. Cazort 22:02, 1 April 2013 (CDT)

I like that this section will be added and the policies, but I think it would be nice to include the points on how to manage this list in our organizational policies/practices page as well, or rather, add a link to the participation page from the policies page as we don't seem to have one connecting the two yet. I didn't get a clear chance to look over the whole policies page, so I may be missing it. But, what do you think? ~ Kelsey (my phone won't sign for me!)

Hmm, I think having these listed somewhere else as well would be redundant. I wouldn't mind having a link to the participation page from the organizational policies, but I don't have a strong opinion on that. Sylvia 09:41, 2 April 2013 (CDT)

I thought it might be a little redundant too, which is why I suggested a link to the participation page from organizational policies. I feel like our policies on participation are technically a form of organizational policy. Kleclair 10:13, 2 April 2013 (CDT)

There actually is a link there, in the section about meetings, where it mentions participants. It doesn't describe anything about the page, though. Sylvia 10:47, 2 April 2013 (CDT)

Cool, yay! I was hoping there would be one, I haven't had a chance to scan over the page yet today. :) Maybe we could talk a little more on Thursday about the participation page and whether or not we want to add anything on participation to the organizational policies page? I don't want to get too redundant though, as we stated above! Kleclair 13:09, 2 April 2013 (CDT)

After 8 days, these changes have become official! Sylvia 09:35, 9 April 2013 (CDT)

Proposed changes to "Removing Participants"

At the Monday meeting in Horsham, we are proposing the following changes, which are a development of the discussed changes from Saturday's meeting in Delaware. We propose changing the existing text to bullet points, and adding new points. The result would be:

• People stay considered as participants unless they are removed by consensus at a group meeting.
• The only grounds for removal are if a person consistently breaks the rules of communication in writing, or breaks the rules of communication and refuses to follow our process of rewording or abandoning their point.
• If any participant causes a severe problem on the wiki (such as vandalizing pages), anyone can contact a wiki administrator, who can temporarily bar their account from editing until the matter is resolved at a meeting.
• When discussing removal of a participant, that person is allowed to attend the meeting where their removal is discussed. At this meeting, that person is only required to follow the rules of communication to whatever minimal degree the other participants are comfortable with. If the person oversteps these boundaries, they can be removed from the meeting immediately.
• Removal of participants is not permanent; consensus at a meeting and an 8-day waiting period to check for objections from participants not present are required for a person who has previously been removed to become a participant again through the normal process.

Also, we changed "becomes a severe problem on the wiki" to "causes a severe problem on the wiki" because calling a person a problem is a subjective negative label which violates our rules of communication. We also changed "is discussed at a meeting" to "is resolved at a meeting" because we want the temporary ban to stay in place in the case that people discuss the matter but a consensus is not reached.

These will become official after 8 days if there are no objections. Cazort 18:52, 3 December 2012 (CST)

There have been no objections so these have become official. Cazort 22:20, 13 December 2012 (CST)

We proposed changing these, because they do not address problems like violence, harassment, or threats. We did not propose any changes to any other points, but we propose changing the second point to:

• The following are grounds for removal:

• A person consistently breaks the rules of communication in writing, on the wiki or in any other official written medium of Why This Way.
• A person refuses to follow the rules and process of communication.
• A person uses or threatens to use violence in a meeting, or harasses anyone during a meeting.
• A person uses or threatens to use violence against anyone, or harasses anyone, in any circumstance, and a participant in Why This Way believes that the incident could negatively affect the group.

We also agreed to add this point:

• Violence, threats, or harassment in a meeting are also grounds for a person's immediate removal from the meeting.

These will become official after 8 days if there are no objections. We agreed that if there are objections to these but not to the Monday changes, that the monday changes can still go through after their original 8 day period. Cazort 19:59, 6 December 2012 (CST)

There have been no objections so these have also become official. Cazort 10:42, 16 December 2012 (CST)