[OSList] Please recommend a good website to post ...(ethical questions)

[Diane Gibeault]

I want to keep continuity of the tread of this topic and at the same time invite a discussion on our role to use technology in a way that respects the Open Space spirit. 

Technology is wonderful to bring extra connections among people but we as OS facilitators or organizers, have a professional and moral responsibility to work on creating a safe space and that includes communicating clearly to participants, the conditions under which they are sharing in reports, their thoughts, feelings and personal experiences, with other participants and sometimes with the world when reports are given broad internet distribution. 

It's a question of ethics of OS, ie working in the spirit of openness, transparency and respect. 

My concern is about informed consent to create a safe space.

Tricia raised the fact of Google's policy - the unlimited use by Google of anything posted on Google Doc (see at the end of this message, the policy extract recopied). Her comments points to the responsibility of OS organizers and facilitators to inform participants of this, in an evident manner to allow them to exercise informed consent when using technologies like Google Doc to produce discussion reports. 

There is more to it than that policy. When used for the drafting of a discussion report, Google Doc also removes any privacy in the thought process or the possibility of paying as much attention as can be needed for the wording on sensitive issues.  

At some of the OS events I participated to, where reports were being shared widely on the Internet, I heard participants that were quite chocked when they learned that as they were entering their report at the news room in Google Doc, every word was instantly available for the world to see. 

The problem is that there is no real room for the process of working on your thoughts, the redrafting, every word can be traced at every step of the way. This is particularly worrisome when a report addresses a highly sensitive issue in a group or an organization. One may intend to be sensitive to how things are said but it can be futile since every draft is traceable. It can also be a bit paralyzing and can stifle the creative mind process.

Not everyone in the room is necessarily knowledgable of all the aspects of the technology used. It's important that the newsroom be set up so that an intermediate step to create reports is the default system allowing those who want to do their work immediately on line can do so. 

If participants will be using their own computers outside of the newsroom, the facilitator also needs to inform participants at the outset of what is entailed on the level of access to that information, when working directly on programs like Google Doc and offer the alternative options available.

People should come first. Technology should be at the service of participants and organizations who choose work with OS way and not the other way around.



Google Terms of Service
http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/terms/ :

"When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This license continues even if you stop using our Services (for example, for a business listing you have added to Google Maps)
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