Forum

At the SHE conference in Amsterdam we came up with the idea to publish a Bill of Rights for members of a Social Network (Facebook, Couchsurfing, Hi5, you name it).

It seems that on many of these networks, the company or organization behind these communities assign themselves many rights (they can use your data, own your pictures, do not allow you to discuss the way the site works etc...) but fail to give basic democratic rights to their members.

So we thought of creating a Bill of Rights for all these networks, and implement them on BeWelcome. And this is where we need your help. Instead of "giving" you rights, we would like you to tell us which rights are important for you.

On the volunteer wiki you can already read what we came up, and here in this forum you can discuss it and add your own "rights".

For those who do not want to read everything in the wiki, here is a short summary of our initial draft:

As a member of this social networking site:

1. I have the right to fully use the intended functionality of the website, regardless of my race, gender or socio-cultural background.

2. My use of the service shall be free of cost.

3. I have the right to participate in the decision making process that governs this site.

4. I have the right to full organizational transparency for all matters that affect me personally or the community to which I subscribed. This includes access to the bookkeeping and to a record of all organizational decisions and debates.

5. I have the right to physical and social safety within the service. I understand my personal responsibility in providing this safety for others members as well.

6. I have the right to choose the way my personal data is being used in the network. My personal data can not be shared, sold or otherwise distributed without my explicit consent. I have the right to hide, modify, export or remove the personal data that I have entered in the site. I have a right to cancel my membership.

7. I have a right to view the code that is being used to run this site.

I support this.

Would like to add:

1) I have the right to have the site adapted to my social/cultural needs and preferences (as long as that does not infrindge on others' rights).

2) Some kind of right not to be sensored

3) and/or Right to have my opinions heard.

sure there's plenty more. Number one, I feel is important because almost all social networking websites have a middle class / western bias.  This needs to be address.

The idea in general seems nice. It's good to see the other side of this kind of discussion.

A few notes:

"1) I have the right to have the site adapted to my social/cultural needs and preferences (as long as that does not infrindge on others' rights)."

This means that you have the right to dictate the work of the organisation. I'd say no. Perhaps reformulate to: I have the right to adapt or help in adapting the site to my social/cultural needs and preferences (as long as this does not run contrary to the other rights)

"3) and/or Right to have my opinions heard."

 This is implied by "3. I have the right to participate in the decision making process that governs this site." I think. Apart from that, I think it should be more like: I have the right to express my opinions. I don't think there should be a right to have somebody listen to you every single time you have a tiny little issue with something. But you should be free to convince others that your tiny little issue is in fact a major issue and needs attention.

Quote = Adia:
"and then? all of them? all that i want?"

??? Your point is?

Regards
Peter

@crculver : I suppose it means you have the right to not be insulted. Which means that the website needs to have a policy to deal with offenders.

Julien

@ adia : with implementation on BeWelcome we mean that we will draft this Bill of Rights, taking into account the feedback from our users, see if it is legally and technically possible to put all the suggestions in the Bill of Rights, and then we will publish it in a charter that BeWelcome will uphold.

Nothing more, nothing less.

I'll give you one example : if the Bill says that members own their own data, then that would mean that if you (adia) want to leave BW and want all your forum posts to be deleted (for example), BW should comply with that request.

simple, no? or is it "too simple" ?

@jsacks: I'm happy with the right to diversity, but I will personally not support any right of members that allow them to demand work be done for them. I am happy to support a right to help create the diversity but I strongly disagree with rights that allow members to say "this doesn't suit my needs, change it now".

Regards
Peter

"ok well how about people who are blind that want to view the site.  Should we not work to eventually provide audio for everyone if possible? This group of people may not be able to contribute to the code themselves but dont they have the right to 'demand' that their needs are met too?"

No we shouldn't. We should strive towards making our site accessible to disabled people for sure, but we shouldn't favourize certain groups of people by going out of our way to make sure that exactly they can use our site. BeWelcome is an organisation made by volunteers and run by volunteers - the key concept is participation, NOT trying to cater to every possible perceived need.
 In general, I don't think we should allow anyone to demand anything. If a blind person starts demanding that we make BeWelcome accessible this very instance, I won't care that much. HOWEVER, if a blind person were to say "Listen, your site isn't accessible to blind people, here are the problems and this is what might help" then hasn't that person already participated? Hasn't that person taken part? That's all I'm asking.

Bottom line for me: BeWelcome is not a place where you can just come and demand whatever you want (e.g. "the website does not use my country's colors, I DEMAND THAT YOU CHANGE IT TO SUIT MY PATRIOTIC NEEDS!") it's a situation that you can take part in, a collaboration, an experience, an organisation of open-minded people. If there should be rights, they should reflect that.

Regards
Peter

@Jared :

this is not correct.

People from areas without a postal code (Republic of Ireland for example) can still sign up, they just have to specify it in the feedback form.