But I worry that instead of viewing it as a tradeoff, where discussion of rules is warranted, and and instead of seeing relationships as a place where we need caution and norms, it’s instead viewed from a lens of meddling versus personal freedom, and so it feels unreasonable to have any rules about what consenting adults should do.
To me, at least, the current suggestions (in top level posts) do feel more like ‘meddling’ than like reasonable norms. This is because they are on the one hand very broad, ignoring many details and differences—and on the other hand don’t seem to me like they’ll solve our problems.
For example, I almost agree with you regarding relationships between uni group leaders and members—I think disclosure (to whom?) might be reasonable, but anything beyond that wouldn’t be. On the other hand, I think the main factor here, which these suggestions ignore, isn’t just the difference in power that comes from the hierarchy, but rather the difference in seniority. I’m much more worried about people who have an established place in the community starting relationships with newcomers, because it seems much easier to cause harm there.
I don’t think there were suggestions, really. From what the post actually said, “Organizations handle these conflicts in a range of ways… On the more specific question of what norms to have, I don’t know.”
But in defense of rules, I think it’s fine to make rules to deal with the normal cases, and then you tell people you expect them to use their judgement otherwise. Because clearly power differentials are more complex than whether someone has an established place, or is older, or is more senior in an organization. For example, when I was working for 1DaySooner, I was technically junior to a number of people who worked there, but I still had much more community influence than they did. I’ve also been in plenty of situations where people significantly younger than me were in more senior roles. Rules that try to capture all the complexity would be stupid, but so would having no rules at all.
the current suggestions (in top level posts) do feel more like ‘meddling’ than like reasonable norms
I don’t think there were suggestions, really. From what the post actually said …
To me, at least, the current suggestions (in top level posts) do feel more like ‘meddling’ than like reasonable norms. This is because they are on the one hand very broad, ignoring many details and differences—and on the other hand don’t seem to me like they’ll solve our problems.
For example, I almost agree with you regarding relationships between uni group leaders and members—I think disclosure (to whom?) might be reasonable, but anything beyond that wouldn’t be. On the other hand, I think the main factor here, which these suggestions ignore, isn’t just the difference in power that comes from the hierarchy, but rather the difference in seniority. I’m much more worried about people who have an established place in the community starting relationships with newcomers, because it seems much easier to cause harm there.
I don’t think there were suggestions, really. From what the post actually said, “Organizations handle these conflicts in a range of ways… On the more specific question of what norms to have, I don’t know.”
But in defense of rules, I think it’s fine to make rules to deal with the normal cases, and then you tell people you expect them to use their judgement otherwise. Because clearly power differentials are more complex than whether someone has an established place, or is older, or is more senior in an organization. For example, when I was working for 1DaySooner, I was technically junior to a number of people who worked there, but I still had much more community influence than they did. I’ve also been in plenty of situations where people significantly younger than me were in more senior roles. Rules that try to capture all the complexity would be stupid, but so would having no rules at all.
I read Guy as talking about the top level posts Consider not sleeping around within the community and EA’s weirdness makes it unusually susceptible to bad behavior but, yes, if he’s talking about me I haven’t actually gotten far enough to figure out what sort of suggestions I might make.