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SIPB Social Principles
Preamble:
The purpose of these principles is to provide guidance and a baseline
for interpersonal interactions at SIPB, whether in the office, at a
hackathon, or in an electronic medium. These expectations are focused
on individual empowerment and making SIPB a supportive, productive,
and fun learning environment, where people feel comfortable making
mistakes and learning from them.
No feigning surprise
The first rule means you shouldn't act surprised when people say they
don't know something. This applies to both technical things ("What?! I
can't believe you don't know what Hesiod is!") and non-technical
things ("You don't know who RMS is?!"). Feigning surprise has
absolutely no social or educational benefit: When people feign
surprise, it's usually to make them feel better about themselves and
others feel worse. And even when that's not the intention, it's almost
always the effect. As you've probably already guessed, this rule is
tightly coupled to our belief in the importance of people feeling
comfortable saying "I don't know" and "I don't understand."
It may be best to avoid acting surprised even when you actually
are. Regardless of whether you're actually surprised somebody hasn't
been to Mary's or just pretending, it can be offputting and make the
listener feel stupid or not like a "real" SIPB member/prospective.
No well-actually's
A well-actually happens when someone says something that's almost -
but not entirely - correct, and you say, "well, actually..." and then
give a minor correction. This is especially annoying when the
correction has no bearing on the actual conversation. This doesn't
mean SIPB isn't about truth-seeking or that we don't care about being
precise. Almost all well-actually's in our experience are about
(intentionally or unintentionally) showing off one's own knowledge,
not truth-seeking. (Thanks to Miguel de Icaza for originally coining
the term "well-actually.")
Even if the information you convey in your "well, actually..." is of
the utmost importance or correctness, consider finding a different way
to say it. "People don't remember what you tell them, they remember
how you make them feel."[1]
No back-seat driving
If you overhear people working through a problem, you shouldn't
intermittently lob advice across the room. This can lead to the "too
many cooks" problem, but more important, it can be rude and disruptive
to half-participate in a conversation. This isn't to say you shouldn't
help, offer advice, or join conversations. On the contrary, we
encourage all those things. Rather, it just means that when you want
to help out or work with others, you should fully engage and not just
butt in sporadically.
Somewhat relatedly, when one person is trying to explain a tool or
concept, keep in mind that they may have a plan for what order they're
going to introduce ideas in. It can be very disruptive to have
somebody interject with something you weren't planning to cover until
later, and need to rearrange your ordering.
No subtle sexism, racism, etc.
Our next social rule bans subtle sexism, racism, homophobia, etc.
(Overt prejudice is, of course, right out.) This one is different
from the ones above it, because it's often not a specific, observable
phenomenon ("well-actually's" are easy to spot because they almost
always start with the words "well, actually...").
SIPB is not a place to publicly debate whether comment X is sexist,
racist, etc. If you see something that's unintentionally sexist,
racist, homophobic, etc. at SIPB you're welcome to point it out to the
person who made the comment, either publicly or privately, or you can
ask an EC member to say something to that person. Once the initial
mention has been made, we ask that all further discussion move off of
public channels. If you are a third party, and you don't see what
could be biased about the comment that was made, feel free to talk to
the EC. Please don't say, "Comment X wasn't homophobic!" Similarly,
please don't pile on to someone who made a mistake.
Apologies consist of "I'm sorry"
An apology should be a sincere expression of sadness for the sadness
of others. When you follow an apology with "...that", "...if",
"..but", you're implying that the other person shares some of the
blame for the incident. Since they're the one who's upset, that's not
true. You may not have intended to make them feel bad, but you did,
and saying "I'm sorry" shows that you regret that they feel bad
(which, hopefully, you do.)
Sometimes, people are tempted to say "I'm sorry, but" (etc.) because
they don't want to concede their point in a discussion. But this sort
of "I'm sorry" isn't really an apology, and is an insincere use of the
words. Being sorry that someone else feels bad doesn't mean that you
necessarily agree with them, it just means that you recognize that
they're upset and wish that weren't the case. This is an opportunity
to think about how to better word your point in order to avoid
upsetting others in the future.
Don't act like people need to be perfect to participate
We want people to participate in SIPB projects without feeling like
they're going to get flamed for not knowing very much. Obviously, this
means that you shouldn't be chastising prospectives for making
mistakes. Less obviously, you shouldn't be chastising people who
"should know better" in public, either. Remember that prospectives
are listening (in the office, on zephyr, on email lists, etc.) and
might think that such criticism might be directed at them if they make
an error.
This doesn't mean you can't give people suggestions on how to do
better, but please don't do so in a way that suggests that they're bad
person for doing what they did, that they should have done better, or
that their contribution wasn't worth making.
Why have social rules?
The goal isn't to burden SIPB with a bunch of annoying rules, or to
give us a stick to bludgeon people with for "being bad." Rather, these
rules are designed to help all of us build a pleasant, productive, and
welcoming community.
If someone says, "hey, you just feigned surprise," or "that's subtly
sexist," don't worry. Just apologize, reflect for a second, and move
on. It doesn't mean you're a "bad" person, or even a "bad" SIPB
member. As we said above, these rules are meant to be lightweight. If
you feel that somebody is repeatedly violating these rules, as with
any other SIPB issue, please talk to the Chair or another EC member
for help. In some cases, it might be appropriate for the Board or EC
to take formal action, but we hope that won't be necessary.
--
[1] Licensed from Peter Iannucci, CC-BY-SA.
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