Guidelines for identifying the scale of conflicts and graduated sanctions in the TEC
This are some reflections we did in the first sessions of the Gravity Working group, where we were thinking on how to measure the scale of conflicts that can take place in the organization, and what can be some reasonable actions to address them, that can be seen as graduated sanctions.
This descriptions should not be seen as a fix criteria, but more as a framework to understand the size of eventual situations that are possible, and suggest a mechanisms to respond to them for the wellbeing of the community and each of its members.
The work done is here: Miro | Online Whiteboard for Visual Collaboration
Small scale conflicts: The issue involves few people
- There can be no registry of the situation
- Spamming
- Strong language
- First times happening
- Lack of recognition/Trust
- Unwanted nicknames/ names
- Taking credit for someone’s work
- Personal issues
- Communication is not broken between parts
- Acting impatiently with someone
- Not recognizing other’s work /biased praise
- Overload/ Pushing people
- Opinions/arguments faced over something
- Making private issues between members go public
- Associating conflict to specific people
- Burnouts/ arguing stress feelings
- Coordination issues
- Misunderstoods / bad communication
- Judging/ making value statements of other member
Mid scale conflicts: The issue is private but is latent
- There is a registry of the situation
- Contradiction of TEC values
- Reinciding unwanted behavior
- The issue involves multiple stakeholders
- Disruption/ sabotage of community events
- Bullying
- Using TEC brand for personal interest
- Discrimination
- Impersonation
- System exploitation/ manipulation
- Unpredicted behavior
- Doxing
- Trying to impose self points of view over collective work
- Publishing private information
- Inappropriate recording or photography
- Promoting frictions between members
- Abusing Sourcecred / praise
- Submitting inappropriate proposals
- Avoidance of Gravitons calls related to managing a conflict
- Challenging a collective decision
Big scale conflicts: The issue is public and manifest
- The issue involves public/external stakeholders
- Management processes have failed
- Committing any type of Violence
- Sexual harassment
- Bug/error exploitation
Suggested actions per management mechanism (graduated sanctions)
Negotiation: The conflict manager (graviton) can act as a witness for an issue that is handled directly between parties.
- Agreement is strictly between parts involved
- No sanction - verbal management
- Follow up
- Most of the time nothing happens
- Can be settled with simple actions
- Informal call between parts
- Reconciliation ritual: Ho’oponopono
Mediation: The Graviton acts as a facilitator for the conflict management process, helping to identify key points to reach an agreement, but not directly suggesting a solution.
- The sanction implies some type of Restorative process
- The dispute could merit a warning for one or both parts
- The solution is not visible and may need and further communication to reach agreements
- Needs a collaborative solution
- Formal written/ management
- There is evidence on the issue
- Private warning
- Assign a mediator (Graviton) to gather information from involved parts
- Tribe Love circles - Intervention
- Helping to restore affected parts
- Formal call between parts with a registry
- Reconciliation ritual: Ho’oponopono
Conciliation: The conflict manager (Graviton) proposes and helps to implement a suggested solution that should be taken into consideration for approval between parties.
- An agreement wasn’t reached between parts. They rely the responsibility of looking for a credibly neutral solution to the conflict managers
- Losing governance tokens
- Formal written/ management
- There is evidence gathered on the issue
- Assign a mediator (graviton) to gather information from involved parts
- Helping to restore affected parts
- Public warning
- Debating the issue
- Deleting proposals / posts
- Graduated banning from discord 1 day, 1 week, 1 month
- Swarming the conflict to look for solutions
- Reconciliation ritual: Ho’oponopono
Arbitration: An external point of view is needed to address the issue
- The sanction implies losing privileges at organization
- The sanction can involve external stakeholders
- There is external evidence gathered on the issue
- Banning from community calls/discord activities
- The issue can be referred to a court for application of legal actions