This is meta, though not exactly on topic, but I don’t see an open thread for suggestions;
I’d like to put in a request to ‘the BB Powers That B’ ( @codinghorror, @sam@orenwolf etc ) that we make a tiny but important adjustment to the official wording of the CoC/FAQ.
If nothing else, the last 4 agonizing years have shown that commonly held standards have to be specifically stated and codified into policy, we can not rely on a general sense of ethics or anyone’s “better nature.”
While I am a pretty fervent believer in not making guidelines too specific (IME rules-lawyering increases the more complex guidelines are) I also recognize there has been an increase in transphobic remarks on a lot of mainstream sites, and we would very much hate to see that travel here.
Worse (and disappointingly so), there seems to be a lot more attention to the long-existing schism between individual members of the broader LGBTQ+ community and transgender community members. We strongly support the unity and equality of that entire community. We are happy to explicitly say that this community is welcome, including its’ transgender members.
Thanks again for the suggestion, I will go ahead and add it.
Also, a small note: while indeed awesome folks, the Discourse team is not involved in moderation or community policy on the BBS. However, their philosophies closely align with ours, which is a large part of why the Discourse software is such a great fit for our group of Happy Mutants.
There are commenters on the bbs whose voices I do not hear anywhere else in my life, and whose words have led me to a better understanding of myself and my family. Small changes to the CoC that reinforce the space for those voices have my complete support.
This is absolutely true – only in the sense that we want to build tools that make moderation easier. We do weight feedback from BBS heavily as our oldest Discourse community.
