Meeting minutes
<tzviya> Date: 2025-06-10
Incident resolution procedures
https://
tzviya: I've been working w Catrina, Sheila and Cristine on the ombuds program.
… Almost settled. Wendy and I will run the Chairs training program for ombuds.
… Getting legal input.
… We had an outstanding PR, for a document called 'Procedures". We rewrote it when Liz was around, and she worked on ombuds program.
… I took the github comments, and drafted in a google doc, becaue it will go into a different gituhub site.
… I saw David's comments.
<tzviya> https://
dbooth: Three substantive issues: 1. We should discuss confidentiality, to avoid ever gagging a victim. 2. Is there an escalation path, or are these just a set of actions that might happen? 3. We need to fill out more about what will happen after an incident is reported. Currently it isn't clear who will discuss it, with whom will the impact be shared, and what happens if the proposed resolution is not satisfactory.
tzviya: We expect this doc to change after we have the ombuds on board.
tzviya: We want to make this options vs escalation.
dbooth: the numbered part is light on what should happen.
tzviya: We'll fill that in more as we can.
… This might get changed after ombuds are in place.
dbooth: in step 3, who discusses the incident?
amy: We really need to be clear on the reporting procedure. This needs to be fleshed out.
… E.g. a woman was at a meeting, she felt there were sexist comments. how do we tell her exactly what to do?
… We want to understnad what the discussion is, what the sharing is, what the resolution is. We don't know that yet.
… But I want to see us think about: telling people what happens when they report.
… My unfortunate experience over the years: people have a problem, report it, something happens, and they never know what happened.
tzviya: We could say that the ombuds have 48 hours to respond.
amy: Ideally, the person who reports an incident, gets a report back of something.
tzviya: Working w sheila on reporting. Depends on the incident the report will differ.
amy: some things are police matters. That's different than a community violation.
amy: Reporter should get some kind of ack back.
dbooth: The doc has used the word "participant" instead of "comunity member".
jen: Important that a reporter gets a response. Maybe not a resolution, but at least a confirmation that they've been heard.
… Also re sexual assualt may not always be reported to authorities.
… .That's up to the individual.
… If they report it to the org, we should hear them. We don't necessarily have to believe them in entirety, but we need to believe their truth.
amy: Your distinction is very important. Some of what I meant of distinguishing a crime from a community violation, we have a responsibility to treat things that we know are crimes differently internally.
jen: And it's critical from a legal perspective too.
amy: Also, we know that even just serving contiguous reporting, reporting to another person that's written, can form another step later if the are not immediatley escalating.
amy: I really like the fact that we're requiring a response. But at the end of the process, there should be some resolution with the reporter. Don't want it to go off into the ether.
jen: Yes, but we'll need legal review of that.
https://
tzviya: Re safety, add "If they feel safe doing so"?
amy: Yes.
jen: Re confidentiality, I think there's a degree of confidentiality that we want to encourage. Some have taken things to social media. That will make a reporter feel worse. Can contribute to bullying.
… So keeping it to a small group is important for the safety of all.
amy: Agree. Should say "anyone on the reporting path should maintain confidentiality", but not gag the reporter.
jen: reporter can talk to therapist, but not talk to reporters.
amy: I see your point, and we're relying on people's respect for the process, but also I see that getting used to muzzle the reports.
… I don't want a person who had a bad thing happened to feel that they don't have another place to go.
… They're usually the ones operating from a disadvantage already.
tzviya: We do say except for reporting violations
amy: It still feels like muzzling to me.
… I want other options to still be open.
amy: Anyone on the reporting path MUST maintain confidentiality.
jen: Keep discussion within your support system
tzviya: But twitter could be someone's support system.
jen: It's horrific when you have thousands of people coming at you.
tzviya: What should we say here?
jen: I maintained confidentiality, but the accused did not.
… Volume is a lot like consensus, and you can create volume quickly on social media.
… I see it a lot in AGWIG.
… Critical to maintain a close circle of confidentiality. Should not be broadcast.
… Small forums are fine.
… Important to not let things swell out of the managed path to resolution.
… There's legal language for this. Sheila may know.
… And for our org, should anything escalate, all of those communications are part of discovery, so discover becomes more expensive.
tzviya: I'll talk to Christine. I appreciate where you're coming from, but I'm not sure from a legal perxpective.
<amy> I'm thinking of reporting chain = confidentiality. and while the process is happening the reportee and accused should keep the matter private, not brining to the public or community in retalation or promotion of the issue
dbooth: Biggest concern is not to ever gag a victim.
amy: We might want to better define these terms. Reporting party, chairs, etc. If it helps to say who would be involved, we should say that.
tzviya: Hard to write definitions.
… Don't want to write definitions.
amy: This is a really hard topic of conversation, but I really appreciate how this group is approaching it.
ADJOURNED