Softer sanctions

All the way back in 2020 we’ve been discussing softer sanctions to group member’s who break the rules. Now it’s time to get it done! :slight_smile: :tada:

This a NlNet funded milestone and I’m arranging a few meetings to have a final design on this and implement it. Our final deadline is the end of February 2025. Here’s what it’s all about:

Successful commoning practices require the application of graduated sanctions to members who break the rules established by the group. This has also been a request by groups using Karrot. The sanctions applied should be listed within the group, time limited, and sufficiently flexible (e.g. sanction a member’s participation within a single place in the group). It will also support “offline” sanctions by allowing a text description option that a group has agreed upon.

Before we go to sketches and prototyping, we’ll have to consider some important questions:

  • who in the group will decide on the sanctions?
  • how will the process of reporting (if any), deciding and applying the sanction look like?

Previous discussions

Meeting FS Germany / Solikyl - https://pad.kanthaus.online/conflict-and-decision-call#

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Design softer sanctions

1st meeting 10/10

Participants: Bruno, Jay, Nick, Joakim, Karolina

  • check-in (10 min)
  • quick recap, what has been discussed and decided (5 min)
    • old topic, being discussed at least since 2020. See Softer sanctions
    • we had conflict resolution process before, now called membership review
    • had recurring discussions about what happens for situations less harsh than membership review process
    • time to make it happen! part of our nlnet funding now, feb/march next year deadline
    • What we’re doing:

Successful commoning practices require the application of graduated sanctions to members who break the rules established by the group. This has also been a request by groups using Karrot. The sanctions applied should be listed within the group, time limited, and sufficiently flexible (e.g. sanction a member’s participation within a single place in the group). It will also support “offline” sanctions by allowing a text description option that a group has agreed upon.

  • Discussion (10-20 min, depending on which groups are present)

    • What happens when people misbehave or break the rules? What are their challenges? (Karolina reporting for FSW. Bruno or Joakim for Solikyl)
    • Karolina in fsw
      • most important point is two groups of conflicts, technical or personal
      • complex situations, doing everything on karrot only, is not enough
      • so we have an external system, and go back to karrot only if we used all the options available
      • there is a few people in the team that work on the topics, and at the end somebody from the group puts the outcome to the rest of the group in karrot
      • would be nice if karrot could support the things we currently do on the side
      • big discussion/problem about this subgroup, should be 5 people everyone trusts that we nominate, really hard job to do this, receive cases, lots of annoyed people, playing mediator role, working out if things are true or not, searching for solutions, can give yellow or red card (like in football), not pleasant role
      • some people do it, but get tired, as too stressful, then there can be a period without this group as nobody is there, so then left to what karrot offers (where anyone can click sadface, and discuss it), 40$ of people say we should do it this way, 60% say nice people designed it, but too much having 60 people discussing one topic (especially if it’s minor), a lot of exposure - feels like you’re standing infront of lots of people online - in society, you go to a court and have some experts, but not the whole village
      • some people do think you should not have anything “behind the scenes”
      • trouble with fake reports and rumours that everyone reads
      • technical issues
        • some issues like somebody not picking up, or late
        • sanctions? yellow card, then if they do it again, it’s a red card, then update the desciption in karrot to say “this person 5 times didn’t appear” for example
        • discussion is easier for these technical issues
        • usually the person says sorry
        • if somebody was selling picked up for, or exchanging it for specific products (e.g. give me some coffee), then it’s like a court process, look for screenshots on facebook groups, etc…
        • if people are appearing at others pickups without announcing it, or insulting other people, or stalking, quite tricky… some people considering these are private issues, not foodsharing, but unclear where the line is
        • communication rules - these are tough, as people can disagree/deny/etc. sanctions for communication are hard
      • do the sanctions restrict pickups? no - how could we.
      • during holidays a lot of empty slots, and sometimes people send other people who they trust, rule was that if people were excluded they cannot be the external person doing the pickup, how can we check?
      • technical vs personal
        • there is a report form people fill out
        • selling stuff was a big issue, so sort of jumped through the procedures
      • reporting system on the side
        • google sheets, messenger conversations, and a form people can submit a report
        • can write a description in the report form, and which shop, etc…
        • then subteam contact the person who submitted it, and checking against the rules, etc.
      • didn’t used to have all the rules, but at a certain number gets more hierarchical
      • great and idealistic for karrot to be so anti-hierarchical, but if 200 people in group are of the same view, but if a few want to damage the system it’s quite easy, prone to abuse
      • report form has:
        • have you tried to talk with them: yes/no
        • where was it, date, your name, can be anonymous (but hard to evaluate them), what happened
        • goal is for people to first talk to each other, then ask what was the result of speaking
      • first member removal process was before the feature existed, and just faked it - “we’re going to kick you out”
      • how to choose the people in the conflict team
        • know it’s a hard role but volunteer, try to talk to people, if there are more than needed, then doing a voting
        • initially used the -2/+2 voting system
          • most people vote yes/no, not other thing
          • good for social scientists
          • had it so you at least need + points, as it’s a trusted group
      • for creating reports
        • tried to make initition process hard, all manual process
        • in foodsharing.de still manual
      • hard dealing with different emotions
        • gender, age, worldviews, motivations
        • out of bubble, hard to find commonality sometimes
        • sometimes people just want free food
    • joakim in solikyl
      • has been very interesting to hear, so much to identify with
      • tried to create a group to take care of conflicts, as nobody wants to be in such a group
      • the board has become more responsible for these things
        • board can take more decisions than they used to
        • board can decide if somebody is suspended from the group
        • would prefer a more democratic way, but just developed this way
        • board has become that group, so can be difficult to find people who want to be on the board
      • worked more naturally with a smaller group, but as it got bigger has become a very drastic thing to use the conflict resolution button
        • has been wild weeks whenever that has been used
        • people so angry and furious and try and destroy each others lives :cry:
      • don’t have this technical/personal division
      • board considers the issue and makes a decision
      • more difficult to deal with the more technical/objective issues, and less when they are subjective/personal
      • sanction decisions used
        • system to pause people, different kinds
          • temporary pause to stop damage, e.g. if somebody keeps arriving late, then have a meeting and try and solve it
          • can also be paused for 1,2,3 months from all activities, more like a punishment pause, haven’t really used this
          • can decide a person should not be active at a certain place
          • can be custom decisions for individual people to solve a problem
          • partly to show people we want to find a solution and want them to keep being active, but also being clear the problem cannot continue
        • one way has been having a meeting, and putting the repsonsiblity on the person to come up with a solution
    • on rules:
      • solisykl: have a set of guidelines/rules, very obvious ones, e.g. can’t be late to a pickup, can’t leave earlier
        • would refer to them if an issue comes up
        • helps with the technical part
        • hard to have rules for more personal situations though, can’t go into every possible scenario that could happen, would be an endless set of rules
      • warsaw:
  • Questions (note-taking together with the above)

    • how could we fail? what could go wrong?
      • not enough people to check and deal (and mediate) with the wrongdoings
      • people getting power and abusing it
      • people will not talk to each other to solve their issues
    • what needs to be true to achieve our goal?
      • groups should not be too big?
      • some people need to deal with the cases and make a decision
    • How might we…?
      • motivate people to participate in a conflict mediation group
      • motivate people to find solutions to their own problem
      • connect the sanctions to the group rules
      • handle situations when there is nobody that wants to do the mediation
      • make sure people (someone) will take responsibility for dealing with a case
  • more discussion

    • could use the “sadface” still, as a report
      • e.g. on a karrot chat, asking if they have spoken to the person
      • if it’s not solved, then who should be informed
    • key thing to get team of mediation team
      • need to take into account the scenario where nobody wants to do it
      • where whole group needs to decide
    • problem is groups are so big, size of the group is in the way of using the system
      • don’t know how that can be solved, if there is a way to use a feature without the whole group “ganging up” on a person
      • feel a bit stuck
    • wondering if as the karrot team we can support the groups
      • easier to contact people if you are not in contact with them every day, must be very hard in person
      • what if we had tools that we as the karrot team can use so we can impose some decisions
      • sounds lovely idea, but I wouldn’t do it
      • could be an international team, language is a problem
      • in germany they have changed how they deal with reports, varying from local vs central team
    • trying to depersonalise conflicts as much as possible, trying to make a professional approach
      • being a bit external to the situation
      • refering to rules makes that easier to apply sanction/send a warning
    • first step in solikyl contacting a person about a report and remind them of rules, regardless if they did it, fine if they deny it in the first case, just a reminder
      • psychological thing of being watched
    • come back to the question of size
      • in small groups everyone knows everything, but when more people not good to know everything
      • something tiring in karrot, even if trying to mute all the emails, everyone gets too informed about everything
      • some people just want to do their community work, not think about everything all the time, too much information, reducing how
    • idea to use the roles to have this subgroup that can take care of things
    • who is going to decide the sanction system?
    • idea that when reporting you can invite a few people you like/trust into the process
  • Next steps

    • Bruno will book another session to continue on the process
  • checkout

Next

I am about to start a therapy for Complex Post Trauma Stress Disorder. Please make sure you don’t implement in the code social ostracism, that’s a penalty nobody deserves.

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