I hate to revive such an ugly thread, but I wanted to share my experience, as it might be useful insight as someone who is browsing MakeICT content for the first time.
I stepped away from the space for several months to deal with a death in my family. My older brother succumbed to a long, horrible bout of cancer. I’ve recently begun popping my head back in and completely missed out on most of the discussion that’s been going on. The weight and depression of what has happened to my family has been really tough, and I very seriously thought about throwing in the towel and leaving my Garden Area Lead responsibilities and just climbing into a depression hole.
That’s not helpful for anyone long-term, so I shook the idea and have since started to plan for spring and have been feeling much better as of late.
The reason I say this is because I now log onto the forum and see that hate and ignorance seems to be growing within our space. IMO, some of the comments on this thread deserve a permanent ban. It’s absolutely unacceptable to be questioning anyone’s identity or personal life choices publicly, especially documented on a forum. This mindset is incompatible with the basic tenants of our space.
I’ll tell you, this thread makes we want to run far, far away from MakeICT. It’s bad enough that we have to deal with this kind of ignorance in the media, in our politics, in our schools, etc. But to see this looming among our membership at a place that should ONLY be about crafts, art, and simply having fun is gross. I can’t imagine someone joining our organization and logging onto this forum and reading this thread, or many other recent ones, where adults are acting like petulant middle schoolers.
The only reason you would have a problem with the code of conduct is if you’re accustomed to not policing what’s coming out of your mouth. If you’re feeling targeted by those bylaws, it’s because you’re the person in the room making everyone uncomfortable because you can’t keep your thoughts to yourself.
I see the code of conduct policy as pretty straight forward: don’t make people feel uncomfortable. I don’t believe that anyone is actually confused about what this policy means. It’s very easy to not comment on someone’s appearance, sexuality, gender, race, etc. It’s easy to not have conversations about these topics loudly in a public space so others might hear. Stop acting like it’s easy to slip up or that you “might say the wrong thing.” I’ve been a member for four years. Somehow, I’ve managed to enter the space and not say inappropriate things to the people around me. I manage to not discuss politics or social issues loudly in front of mixed company. All of the comments questioning this policy are in bad faith, and we can all see through your dog whistling. There’s a lot of fake persecution that’s going on–people act like they’re the victim because they’ve simply been asked to follow some simple rules or have been called out on outdated, offensive viewpoints. We all see through it. This happened in the garden committee. We welcomed someone into our space, and they tried to take advantage at every turn. The slightest pushback, the smallest of limitations on their work, was seen as an egregious censoring of their ideas. We had a wonderful day of community collaboration and artwork ruined because they felt slighted by having basic boundaries put around them. It’s insufferable martyrdom and annoying to be around.
Anyway, these are my gripes. I can tell you that so many people are tired of the fighting and childishness that is on display in threads like this. We’re losing dedicated volunteers–people who loved this space–because of this crap. Just stop.
