Episode 107: Caroline Sinders on building healthy OSS Communities

Guest Caroline Sinders Panelists Richard Littauer | Eriol Fox | Ben
Nickolls Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where
we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Today, we
are very excited to have as our guest, Caroline Sinders, who is the
Founder of Convocation Design + Research. She’s also a critical
designer, researcher, and artist, and a lot of the work she does is
on online gender-based violence, as well as community health and
toxicity. She has a lot of expertise looking at what Codes of
Conduct mean, how to have safe communities, and how to understand
how to code together better. Caroline details her journey and how
she got into this line of work, and how she understands the
boundaries of communities, what she observes in the open source
communities, and how platforms influence communities. Also, she
tells us about a great toolkit she read and some great resources
you can check out if you’re new to dealing with Code of Conduct. Go
ahead and download this episode to learn more! [00:02:44] Caroline
explains how she started getting into this line of work. [00:07:08]
As an ethnographer, we find out how Caroline understands the
boundaries of communities and how she looks at them as building
spaces of shared values. [00:13:17] Eriol wants to know things that
Caroline sees happening in the spaces she observes, especially
within open source communities, and why she thinks this happens in
these communities. [00:19:18] Ben wonders how Caroline feels about
the influence that a platform has on communities, appreciation, and
values of skill sets within that community. [00:23:34] Eriol
wonders if Caroline has encountered any communities that are very
resistant to code of conduct being implemented. Also, Caroline
talks about an interesting toolkit she read called, Toolkit for
Cooperative, Collective, & Collaborative Cultural Work.
[00:31:36] Caroline shares some great resources that are worth
checking out if you’re new to dealing with Code of Conduct.
[00:33:29] Find out where to follow Caroline on the web. Quotes
[00:22:54] “ I think we’re stuck in a place where community worth
for a community member is how many lines of code you’ve written and
maybe not how many successful events have you run, how many
facilitation trainings have you gone through, how any harassment
teams have you helped serve spun up a guide, and those are the
skills we need.” [00:25:18] “Community doesn’t mean friendship.”
[00:25:21] “Just because you’re a small group of people that
doesn’t mean you aren’t going to have a problem, it just means you
haven’t had one yet.” Spotlight [00:34:45] Eriol’s spotlight is a
talk by Kiran-Rin Oliver: Community Repositories- Why You Need One
Your Open Source Project. [00:35:25] Ben’s spotlight is a project
called OpenAstroTech. [00:36:04] Richard’s spotlight is Christmas
Bird Counts. [00:36:41] Caroline’s spotlights are the Toolkit for
Cooperative, Collective, & Collaborative Cultural Work, and a
shout out to her friends for celebrating their 10th Anniversary of
pie hard, where they ate pie and watched Die Hard during the
holiday season. Links SustainOSS (https://sustainoss.org/)
SustainOSS Twitter
(https://twitter.com/SustainOSS?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor)
SustainOSS Discourse (https://discourse.sustainoss.org/) Digital
Infrastructure Podcast (https://dif.fireside.fm/) Digital
Infrastructure Podcast-Episode 7: Caroline Sinders on the
Importance of Diverse Communities (https://dif.fireside.fm/7)
Caroline Sinders Twitter (https://twitter.com/carolinesinders)
Caroline Sinders Website (https://carolinesinders.com/) Toolkit for
Cooperative, Collective, & Collaborative Cultural Work
(https://toolkit.press/introduction.html) How to Respond to Code of
Conduct Reports by Valerie Aurora
(https://frameshiftconsulting.com/resources/code-of-conduct-book/)
Community Repositories- Why You Need One Your Open Source Project
(YouTube) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfAEzrt4mYA)
OpenAstroTech (https://openastrotech.com/) Audubon Christmas Bird
Count
(https://www.audubon.org/conservation/join-christmas-bird-count)
Die Hard (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095016/) “What Does a
Community Need?” Researching Remote Communities, Digital Events,
Academic Conferences, and Tool Design during COVID19 by Caroline
Sinders, Melina Garcia, and Melissa Huerta (Simply Secure)
(https://simplysecure.org/blog/communities-and-remote-collaboration/)
Credits Produced by Richard Littauer (https://www.burntfen.com/)
Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound
(https://www.peachtreesound.com/) Show notes by DeAnn Bahr
Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/) Special Guest:
Caroline Sinders.