• IrcPurpose

Purpose and Aim of the Ubuntu Women channel

As a project, we have an IRC channel, this document seeks to outline the purpose and aim of the channel as a tool for the project.

• Discussion of ongoing and future project initiatives, such as interviews in FCM, mentoring and developing handouts
• Identifying strengths and interests of individual women who join us to help them find a place to contribute within Ubuntu
• Ongoing encouragement of women participating within Ubuntu
• Support through camaraderie

Open Discussion on Channel Options

There is also open discussion on what should be discussed in the channel and the need for a separate channel.

• Should the channel be a place to go if you are being harassed elsewhere, at work or on other irc channels or even Ubuntu channels. But the idea of what the channel is here for needs to be defined first.
• Should #ubuntu-women be seen a channel to discuss only some topics and for a separate channel be created to discuss issues that arise. So one channel for project related discussions and one for offtopic.
• With the idea mooted of a second channel named to be decided, there are a few options open.
  • Option 1 - Main channel #ubuntu-women as a social channel, which isn't logged and create a separate channel called #ubuntu-women-project which would be a logged channel.
  • Option 2 - Ban off topic chatting in -women and create a channel for discussing complaints
  • Option 3 - Keep social and all chatter in main #ubuntu-women channel, have it logged, Create another channel, where the Ubuntu women leader and a select few( how ever comes about) to be in there to deal with issues that arise, this channel not to be publicly logged, but logs available on request by the CC.

Pro's & Con's of Logging

The benefits of logging include:

• Freedom to share logs snippits of discussions in the channel with third parties who were not present, there are several examples of this which include:
  • shared with community members who are not able to be connected to IRC 24/7
  • passing along information to people whose projects we want to collaborate with
  • in blog posts about the project
  • discussions on our mailing list
  • sending logs of disruptive users who seek to harm the channel to proper authorities within Ubuntu and Freenode
• Working toward removing the stigma in the community that we're a closed, secretive project
• Consistency with other major Ubuntu projects

The issues flagged so far for logging are:

• Logging the channel will allow for "stalking" of channel members
• Creating a separate channel for incident reporting and discussion won't quell the rumours that we are being secretive and gossipy.
• There's more to "safe space" than reporting incidents, there is casual, comfortable socializing without fear of logging.

Table of Options

Table of Suggestions from mailing list post - Thread can be found here The options listed are just a very general broad overview based on the email thread and the items listed here and discussed in IRC and in the UW meetings