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Hi everyone, thank you so much for inviting me 
here today, it's a pleasure to speak to you all.

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I'm Denae Ford Robinson, a 
researcher at the intersection of

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online community, software engineering, 
and human computer interaction,

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and today I guess my talk takes 
a little bit of a different twist

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from what others have been talking about.
I'm going to be really consolidating some

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findings from prior research of other amazing 
scholars and researchers looking into safety.

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So i want to take this time to talk 
about how we can keep developers safe,

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drawing on their work, and in this talk I'll be 
sharing findings from their research, and in the

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hope that we can help to devise interventions 
that can better support the developer community

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and really understand how we can keep 
people safe and the community safe at scale.

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Safety is something that many 
of us often take for granted.

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Unfortunately it isn't until we're on 
the other side of an uncomfortable or

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unsettling situation that we begin to think 
of why it is important to have processes or

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tools in place to keep us protected.
So this article that i have shared on the screen

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here is from the Atlantic really highlighted that.
In a series of studies of online engagement

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they were really finding - in diving 
deeper into how this small number of people

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can often silence the dominating view 
or the silent view in online forums.

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So thinking back to some of the work 
that's already been presented today

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from Kelly Blinco and others about how that 
criticism - how that harassment can really be

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discouraging to folks, sometimes it's 
easier to do this in certain settings.

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Likewise a Pew Research 
Center study conducted in 2017

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found that four in 10 americans have 
experienced some form of harassment online.

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So this type of harassment I'm describing 
includes name calling, doxxing, stalking,

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or really just spamming, right, being 
disrespectful, not being as welcoming.

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These types of online harassments can especially 
dam - can be especially damaging for open source

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communities, the maintainers and marginalized 
people specifically, as it makes it difficult

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for them to productively participate in these 
online spaces especially when working publicly.

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So when we translate this activity to open source

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we really have to think about how this can impact 
the people who build systems in the public eye.

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So some of the ones I've previously 
investigated were centered around

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open source software for social good.
So the projects I have on the screen

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are kind of - really centered around how 
people are building tools - developers are

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building tools to support a broad societal 
good, to help a specific population.

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So the one on the left here is Little Window 
which is centered around supporting victims

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of intimate partner violence and the one on the 
right is refuge restrooms which helps non-binary,

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genderqueer, and intersex 
folks find safe restrooms.

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Developers and contributors who work on these 
types of projects can have quite polarizing views,

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and the people who are observing and using 
this project can see that there have been

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quite polarizing political 
perspectives and thus are at risk.

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And like many other socio-technical forums these 
conversations around these projects can get heated

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and sometimes sink to the next level and even

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often times get out of - out of 
context to become quite harmful.

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So this is where psychological 
safety really matters.

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So developers feeling unsafe can directly 
impact your quality of work and thus the

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quality systems and tools that you build.
So a survey from the Global Wellness

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Institute reported that 62 percent of US workers 
- found that when workers felt immensely unwell

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it significantly impacted their work performance 
and how they see their growth overall.

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Safety ultimately provides a level of confidence 
that makes you feel more comfortable engaging.

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So I like to think of safety in relation 
to going outside in below freezing weather.

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So you could still go outside as 
you are in a t-shirt or shorts

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but with a jacket or a blanket around you you 
feel a bit more protected from the elements

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while you're out there.
So you can still contribute to

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open source and engage in the broader developer 
community but with safety precautions and safety

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mechanisms, you know, you can feel a 
bit more protected in that journey.

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So the question I really have here - I want to 
post the community into our broader developer

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community here - is how do we recreate the safety 
and assurance in online programming communities.

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Because if you don't feel safe and supported 
then honestly why would you engage?

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So long story short, when it comes 
to products, safety is the minimum,

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and it's important that developers feel 
like they are psychologically safe.

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Without feeling safe again 
you cannot be effective,

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and the quality of your work 
that you need to produce.

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What I also have on the screen there at the 
bottom is a report from - Stuart Geiger's

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report of the 2017 GitHub survey where they talk a 
lot about some of the approaches people have used

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to kind of circumvent or resolve some of their 
harassment and unwelcoming experiences that

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they've - they have experienced on the platform.
I'm hoping that throughout this talk I'll kind

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of be giving a couple of nuggets 
from prior empirical research

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that can inspire some ongoing work that you as the 
developer community can start building on as well.

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So when we try to answer this question for the 
developer community it's extremely important

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that we leverage prior studies that have 
been investigating this in other settings.

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So there's been several studies that look 
at what collective action looks like for

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community members to feel safe and protected.
So I draw on a lot of scholars from a broader

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computer-supported cooperative work systems and 
forums like Amy Zhang who has worked on this

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tool called Squad Box which is really geared at 
trying to support people who have faced harassment

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and allowing them to collectively grab the group 
of peers to contribute - to support others.

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Another one I highlight here 
on the slide is iHeartMob

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which is again a community dedicated to 
offering support of the victims of harassment,

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so again collectively gathering 
your peers, your colleagues as well,

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to come up with your own system to feel - 
victims feel supported - help people feel

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supported, and thus encourage them engaging.
So again the big question here I have is,

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how do we - what does it look like for 
developers trying to engage in communities.

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And when I do that, I also want to 
highlight what has been quite successful.

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So I want to call out things on the slide here 
which are from GitHub's community safety team.

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So for those of you in the audience may be 
familiar with folks - this was a previous team,

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like, at GitHub, other members of the team include 
Lexi Galantino, Danielle Leong, Caroline Ada

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Ehmke, February Keaney, a slew of others.
I mean they've been tasked with building

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tools to figure out how to keep 
people safe on these platforms.

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So one of them is these temporary interaction 
limits where you can caution or give people or

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encourage people to take a beat when they may 
be spamming issues, as well as thinking about

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different reporting mechanisms that can report to 
the admins or the maintainers of the organization,

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versus what content may be more appropriate 
to share to the GitHub support overall.

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So thinking about seeing these successful 
features that have been built on infrastructure or

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in situ in the platform but think about 
what we can do broadly at a level of

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different scale within each organization 
is what I want us to charge to look at.

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So the Code of Conduct research - there's 
been significant Code of Conduct research

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in developer settings as well as in 
research academic research settings

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looking at how we can encourage folks to engage.
So on the slide here I have the Python Code of

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Conduct as well as the Contributor Covenant which 
has been really successful at adopting - folks

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have been adopting some of these wishes and 
these guidelines for how people should engage.

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But there's also been not as much of growth 
in these areas as we would have hoped to see,

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so Renee Li and Hana Frluckaj and Laura 
Dabbish had done some really interesting work

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analyzing how developers and repos have 
been talking about the Code of Conduct,

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and after removing some of the noise and machine 
commits and conversations that were happening,

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of their sample of 3800 Code of Conduct 
conversations they were seeing that 32

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percent of them - conversations were centered 
around creation, and - which is actually

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quite low still, because the Contributor 
Covenant has been around for some years now.

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But there's also a significant amount of 
conversation as well happening around how to

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moderate these communities, how to keep people 
safe, and again engage in collective action,

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what it means to keep folks engaged, safe, 
and ultimately sustainable communities.

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So what I want to charge you all to look 
at is, thinking about what this looks like

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for the next generation of developers, or 
the next generation of community safety.

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One way this could be or we can think 
about how we can support and grow folks

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is by highlighting those who 
have been doing successful

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and desirable activities and behavior.
Again we're separating this from the

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actor - from the individual versus their behavior 
- because we want to be able to promote them.

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Another perspective as well is, think 
about how are we are engaging with human

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and automated approaches to sanction 
and discourage undesired behaviors.

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So that said, I want to charge us to think 
about what we can do today to help support

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community safety with a quick one-on-one.
First I want to run through and say that if

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we can - if people care about - if communities 
care about it then it should be measured.

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Second, if it's important, there should 
be a person accountable for it, so not

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just enough to be about lip service that we're 
trying to create and foster a great community,

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we want to have human and automated processes, 
that we have a person to point to and can help

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us mitigate some of those gray area situations.
Likewise, if there is accountability for this

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process, there should be a reason 
- there's an approach to track it.

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So we want to be able to have and be 
transparent about the process for how

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people may be sanctioned and how we are promoting 
and encouraging positive behavior on platforms.

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There is the CHAOSS community, which 
many of you may be familiar with,

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where folks are really looking for 
developers, researchers as well,

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interested in testing out these 
interventions at a broader scale.

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So I want to charge you all to look at 
different ways of, like, psychological safety

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beyond just reducing harassment or reducing 
recidivism but thinking about we can challenge

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safety - contributor safety - think about how 
we can grow learners as well in this space.

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So, as I close here, I want to leave you 
all with a few things that you can do today.

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First of all, you can make sure 
your project has a Code of Conduct.

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If it doesn't, you know, it's already a 
sign - it's a signal for many contributors.

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You can ask the project maintainers why they don't 
have one, better yet, ask them how it is enforced.

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Second, if your project does not have a 
Code of Conduct, propose they adopt one.

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The Contributor Covenant is a great place 
to start - several projects have adopted

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this and made it make sense on their own.
So again thinking about you can adopt broader

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systems and rules to be bespoke for your project, 
and a lot of the research I mentioned before is

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about the evaluative and iterative process for how 
these Contributors - Contributors' Covenants grew.

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Third, I want to encourage folks to be 
transparent about the safety procedures in place.

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When you're not, you often put contributors at 
risk, and if you want to grow your community and

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also increase the diversity of contributors 
you have to be sure you're ready for them,

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so have these procedures in place and then 
the people will come, because in fact when

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it's - it can be more dangerous to promise people 
safety that you honestly cannot offer them.

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And I also do want to - also put on a call here 
as an FYI that we are working on some approaches

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to think about how we can support community 
safety and sustainability growth at scale,

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so I wanted to make sure you all 
on the lookout for that as well.

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And with that I'll close and 
thank you all for your time.