In the world we have a big problem of violence against women, but also towards to the LGBT+ community and I think these problems are a serious problem we all can recognise. To create clarity we have a Friendly Space Policy what clearly defines what is unacceptable, something that we all can recognise.
But what should happen when somebody feels uncomfortable, while there is no violation of the Friendly Space Policy?
And in addition, if that somebody does not indicate to feel uncomfortable, so the other person has no way to know someone is uncomfortable. And thus can't fix/help to remove the uncomfortable part of the situation.
If then actions are taken towards the person who apparently created an uncomfortable feeling without knowing that, who also got no indication as such to fix, then this raises to me a lot of questions.
What then happens is that the Trust and Safety team creates for that person an unsafe environment.
And not just for this person, but to anyone who has interaction with another person.
And the more interactions you have with people, the higher is the risk that there is someone feeling uncomfortable.
Especially those people, maybe you have seen them, that walk around to help others, answer questions, etc, (there are various of them at Wikimania), especially those people are at high risk.
If then the Trust and Safety team is taking action, something goes wrong, then an event is no longer safe.
>
What we can do as a community is debate *principles*, i.e. the policy itself.
I think it is not the policy that is the actual subject for debate, but it is about how the policy is used, or otherwise the way how we deal as movement with this kind of situations.
What are the general principles according how the trust and Safety team acts. Those can be open and should not be a black box.
A second thing (or maybe the same) that is something we can talk about is what do we do as movement when somebody feels uncomfortable (as described)?
How can we help this person with this feeling to be comfortable again?
Romaine