2019:Thriving in Safety/When a policy is not enough: Addressing harassment in offline spaces

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Thriving in Safety/When a policy is not enough: Addressing harassment in offline spaces

Gbowee · cancelled

Please have a look at the topics that people want to see in this space before making a submission and describe how your submission connects with those topics.

Description

***cancelled talk***

Wikimedia NYC wrote a friendly space policy in 2014 that was later adopted for the Wikimedia movement. But a policy is not enough. While the Chapter’s many edit-a-thons, workshops and salons provide a fun and welcoming environment, there are inevitably moments of discord. Sometimes these are minor disagreements that can be adequately addressed by chapter leadership. At other times, Wikimedia NYC members have been subject to harassment and abuse. In addition to the impact this had on individual people, it threatened the long term health of the Chapter as members and institutional partners disengaged in order to avoid interactions that threatened their personal and emotional safety.

This presentation will provide a brief history of harassment in Wikimedia NYC, and then share a newly developed toolkit for identifying, reporting, and addressing harassment issues in the Wikimedia community that does not happen on Wikimedia projects. This toolkit may be utilized by adopted by chapters and user groups, contributing to a more sustainable and inclusive Wikimedia movement.

Relationship to the theme

This session will address the conference theme — Wikimedia, Free Knowledge and the Sustainable Development Goals — in the following manner:

Supporting safer spaces both online and offline is critical to a sustainable Wikimedia movement. This presentation will detail how the current friendly space policy in use by the Wikimedia movement was not enough when Wikimedia NYC members faced harassment and abuse in offline spaces, and how the Chapter worked to address this.

Session outcomes

At the end of the session, the following will have been achieved:

• Wikimedia NYC will model accountability for its failures
• Attendees will discuss the implementation of friendly space policies in their own communities
• Attendees will learn about the new toolkit and will be better prepared to implement it
  

Session leader(s)

• Megs, President of Wikimedia NYC

Session type

Each Space at Wikimania 2019 will have specific format requests. The program design prioritises submissions which are future-oriented and directly engage the audience. The format of this submission is a:

• Discussion-based training
• Other

Requirements

The session will work best with these conditions:

• Room (Please be aware that the main room available will be a 30 person board room. We can try and arrange for other rooms, but cannot guarantee success):

• Audience:

• Recording:

While I am comfortable with my contributions being filmed, the conversation will likely be more productive if it is private.