[Approved] NEAR Community Talks: Exploring The Plurality of the Digital

Coordination: @carrapatoso (Tibira DAO)

Realization: Pajubá (@gbonfiglioli)

TL;DR: Develop Community Talks in NEAR Ecosystem inviting LGBTQIA+s to share their experiences and perspectives. The talks with be hosted by Tibira DAO starting with 6 intersectoral talks about LGBTQIA+ community.

Objectives

Governance forums, especially when money is involved, can be a stage for conflicts and hard discussions between members. It is expected that moderators can support and intervene impartially in these discussions and guide the members to a harmless resolution.

However, conflicts can arise in situations that the moderator is not familiar with: maybe for not having previous experience or even not belonging to the group that is being attacked. Also the general community members may not even know that certain expressions or terminologies can be offensive to a determined group of people. How can we guarantee that the moderators are empowered and are comfortable to actively intervene in sensitive situations? How can community members be more empathic to under-represented groups? How can users from under-represented groups feel welcomed and supported in conflicts in the governance forum?

As a way to share experiences and make the moderators – at the same time, community members – feel more comfortable in working with differences and other under-represented groups, a series of focus groups Community Talks are proposed to sensibilize about and welcome diverse people to the governance forums.

NEAR Community Talks Proposal

Organize a series of conversations hosted by Tibira DAO that has a defined periodicity (e.g. weekly on every Monday) in which different people, with different life stories, are invited to share their experiences and tell more about their role in society. Each of these individuals will share their unique perspectives as a way to approach community members and moderators to topics and life experiences that may be out of their comfort zone.

The Community Talks are the way where new topics, new experiences can be accessed and discussed.

Tibira DAO will organize 6 meetings with the focus in the LGBTQIA+ community to sensibilize the members of the NEAR Ecosystem about the realities and sensitivity of under-represented groups.

What is Tibira DAO?

Tibira is a DAO focusing in connecting LGBTQIA+ community and allies interested in creating projects using blockchain.

The DAO is the meeting point for creatives, developers, communicators, and all professionals that want to expand the presence of the LGBTQIA+ community and allies in the digital realm.

In 1614, two years after the arrival of French colonizers in Northern Brazil, Tibira, which means homosexual in the Tupi language, was sentenced to death for sodomy by Yves D’Évreux, a Capuchin monk. Tibira attempted to escape the charge, fled into the woods for several days, but was re-captured by French authorities. Before his execution, Tibira was baptized by D’Évreux in the name of Saint Dismas, strapped to a cannon, which was fired, killing him.

The chosen name aims to remember the evil that colonizers did in foreign soil, that homophobia is not inherent to native communities, that LGBTQIA+ community is constantly chased and needs to be in constant alert state, and that they always need to create means to avoid these cases from happening again.

The goal of Tibira DAO is to create a culture for crypto projects inside the LGBTQIA+ communities around the world. Our goal is to expand the number of people interested in the topic and engaged with the DAO itself. The success is measured by the increasing number of participants through the several activities proposed.

In other words, Tibira DAO is for everyone interested in proposing projects to support the global LGBTQIA+ community.

LGBTQIA+ Talks

LGBTQIA+ Talks will be a series of intersectional focus groups that will take place in the Community Talks, online, and open to everyone inside the NEAR Ecosystem.

These groups will discuss different aspects of prejudice and exclusion against the LGBTQIA+ community with special focus on digital discussions. The goal is to promote an injection of otherness, showcase of difference and a reality check of how diverse people are and behave. Also it is expected to sensibilize users and moderators about the sensitivity of talking in public forums.

We will have 6 different focus groups, one per week, as following:

Order Session Target Format
#1 LGBTQIA+ essentials NEAR Community Moderators Masterclass - Main topics: introduction on gender identity, introduction on sexual orientation, the meaning of the LGBTQIA+ acronym, inclusive language, terminology, the importance of intersectionality
#2 LGBTQIA+ essentials All community members Masterclass - Main topics: introduction on gender identity, introduction on sexual orientation, the meaning of the LGBTQIA+ acronym, inclusive language, terminology, the importance of intersectionality
#3 Gay & lesbian experiences All community members Discussion - With 2 guests, who will share their personal experiences regarding digital discussions based on the specificities of their sexual orientations (gay & lesbian), eventually intertwined with other social markers such as ethnicity, race, disability, etc.
#4 Bisexual & pansexual experiences All community members Discussion - With 2 guests, who will share their personal experiences regarding digital discussions based on the specificities of their sexual orientations (bi & pan), eventually intertwined with other social markers such as ethnicity, race, disability, etc.
#5 Trans / Non-binary experiences All community members Discussion - With 3 guests, who will share their personal experiences regarding digital discussions based on the specificities of their gender identities (trans woman, trans men & non-binary), eventually intertwined with other social markers such as ethnicity, race, disability, etc.
#6 Hands-on activity: real world situations (& how to address them) NEAR Community Moderators Workshop - We will analyze 8 situations and discuss strategies to address each of them. The output will be a document with the chosen strategies and also some other hypothetical paths to avoid.

Methodological remarks:

#1 Intersectionality

The experiences will be LGBTQIA±focused and necessarily intersecting with other excluded social makers. Intersectionality is important as shows different specificities and layers of exclusion and prejudice (eg “you can’t be black and gay”):

Possible intersections:

  • Gender and race intersection: black LGBTQIA+ people
  • Health: LGBTQIA+ people living with HIV
  • LGBTQIA+ immigrants

#2 Active moderation

As for sessions 2, 3, 4 & 5, the moderator plays a role that goes beyond time monitoring and setting up the speeches’ order. PAJUBÁ’s moderation methodology is about encouraging the discussion. We will do that by throwing baits in the event’s comment section, inviting the audience to comment on what is being said as the speeches happen. Further on, moderation will select some of the audience’s remarks to ignite the first questions of the Q&A.

People will also have the option to write down their questions in the comment section if they don’t feel comfortable asking them live.

//// Duration of each focus group: 1 hour

Structure:

  • Introduction/context (PAJUBÁ + TIBIRA) - 10 min
  • Guest’s speech - 20 min
  • Q&A with the audience - 30 min

To help pass the message through different audiences, the talks will have the same thematic that will be used in all the communications to sensibilize and attract audiences. For this first experience, the theme below is proposed:

Exploring The Plurality of the Digital
The experiences of the LGBTQIA+ community in the digital realm

The invited LGBTQIA+ people will talk about their personal stories while interacting digitally, relating to issues regarding work, money, technology and cryptocurrencies. Although the digital reflects our society, the guests will try their best to approach the topics to the dynamic of a crypto ecosystem.

The invited guests will depend on the schedule, but will have people already in the NEAR ecosystem as people outside but relevant in the technology field.

//// Duration of the whole project: 6 weeks (one session per week)

GTM Strategy

The main effort for the GTM strategy is to bring users from different channels (eg. Discord, Twitter, Governance Forums, etc) to attend the live event.

Based on that, a creative briefing will be developed to produce the invitation’s visual identity. Considering the difference of thematics to be approached in NEAR Community Talks, each one should have a unique visual identity, that is why that the briefing will consider only the LGBTQIA+ talks.

The creation of an invitation (still image, copy + layout) will be used for the official announcement of the LGBTQIA+ series describing the theme and the schedule.

Deliverables

After the discussions, resources will be drafted and proposed to the NEAR Foundation. The objective of these resources is to give a starting point to NF to develop their own processes to manage sensitive situations in the governance forums and social media channels. Also, it will be a where-to-go reference document for moderators and community.

The goal for the documents is to be more an etiquette resource rather than a restriction in the community. It will be a best practice resource on how to deal and manage sensitive situations. These documents will depend of the discussions, but can be listed and not exhausted with the examples below:

1. Users guidelines:

  • Analyze the current documents and guidelines
  • Make additions to it to cover sensitive situations
  • Define a escalation process in case of sensitive situations

2. Moderators resources:

  • Best practices of how to react to sensitive situations
  • When to intervene in heated discussions between members
  • Active moderation vs user’s liberty restriction: how to define the line?
  • Common cases as examples
  • Adaptation of specific situations to each platform:
    • Gov Forum - how to create a structured level of argumentation to back the project?
    • Discord - how to create an educational environment regarding LGBTQIA+ issues?
    • Telegram - how to create better criteria for content that will be shared with 50k+ people?
    • Twitter - how to adapt these guidelines to NEAR’s social media interaction?

Budget

Deliverables Units Fee TOTAL
PAJUBÁ [2 “LGBTQIA+ essentials” masterclasses (sessions 1 & 6), curatorship, moderation and production for 4 focus groups (sessions 2, 3, 4 & 5), session 6 workshop facilitation, report/compilation, creative briefing for visual identity] 1 US$ 4,700 US$ 4,700
Guests fee 7 US$ 104 US$ 728
Coordination + Deliverables Development 1 US$ 343 US$ 343
Administrative costs (30%) 1 US$ 1,731.3
TOTAL US$ 7,502.3
7 Likes

Hey,

Having discussed this for some time with @carrapatoso now, I think the value that these types of sessions would provide is clear.

Full support from me, and I hope this is a launchpad for even bigger and better things from TibiraDAO and Co.

3 Likes

Thanks for this @carrapatoso - it’s great to see these plans move one step closer to going live.

While we wait for the Community to digest it a bit more, what would be the ideal schedule for this 6 weeks of sessions to begin? Have you begun outreach yet to secure the speakers?

1 Like

Hey @mecsbecs! We already have ready a short list of participants. But @gbonfiglioli can debrief a little more, if needed. We just didn’t move forward with a specific date, because we don’t know how long it will take to get the final approval. Maybe we should aim for first week of April? What do you think? Tks!

1 Like

Hey! Nice to meet you all, I’m super excited for this opportunity to improve the quality of discussions concerning gender ID and sexual orientation within the NEAR Ecosystem :slight_smile:

The outreach already started, yes - but, in order to get the confirmations, it’s in fact important that we settle the dates for each of the 6 sessions first. I like the idea of starting our schedule by the 1st week of April, and continue week by week for the following sessions. If you are all comfortable with that, it’s just a matter of choosing which day for each week.

Thank you!

2 Likes

Yes, let’s consider this approved & proceed with getting you through the [New Process] Community Payouts process with KYC, etc. @carrapatoso let’s also find some time to work out what would be the most appropriate payout schedule and ‘success’ metrics reporting structure for this. Here’s my Calendly.

Regarding dates, 1st week of April may not allow us adequate time to publicize and coordinate. I would suggest starting mid-April to, with religious holidays, give around a month to properly land on dates and begin promoting. To my mind if the session time and date is repeated over the 6 weeks that would be best to encourage regular and expected participation, but let’s have @jcatnear weigh in here on when would be best to host the 1st session for the NEAR Community Moderators across their different time zones.

Then for sessions #2-6, it would be a good idea to see what time slots exist with other programming through the community on the Community Events calendar so we’re finding a potential slot that doesn’t have a lot of competition. In the past, we’ve found a 9am PST time slot offers the best potential global engagement for virtual events.

Please also share the short list of participants here (indicating who still needs to be confirmed) or in the ongoing PM group to begin to make this more of a reality.

1 Like

Great! Thanks @mecsbecs! I already started the payment process. I will align with @gbonfiglioli the best day and time next week so we can streamline the payout and the metrics. Meanwhile, we will organize the short list with mini-bios (and proposed topics to cover). Tks!

2 Likes

Hi,
Great proposal.

Feel free to contact/connect with members from @ConciergeTeam as the team is doing Moderation on different social platform of NEAR.

Drop me a message if you need help with anything.

5 Likes

This looks good to me, will invite the @ConciergeTeam to participate in the sessions. Please save the date for the team once available cc @stanisnear @KriptoRaptor

6 Likes

This is an amazing project. And it is brilliant.

2 Likes

Yea, I agree, great idea! Looking forward to it.

2 Likes

Hello again - and thanks everyone for the great feedbacks!

@mecsbecs below you can find a first version of our shortlist. As we still don’t have dates, most of the people invited are still not confirmed - they usually prefer having the date settled first before confirming. But 4 of them already said they’re up for the task anyway, so we have 4 confirmations.

i have a bigger list of backup names in case these first ones cancel. The mini-bios, for now, are made by me, based on my personal conversations with the guests - I will have proper bios, wrote by the guests themselves, whenever everyone is confirmed.

//// SESSION 3: Gay & Lesbian experiences

DI CANDIDO - gay black man, Di used to work in the corporate world and left due to racism & homophobia, now he’a is a DJ and event producer in Lisbon. - TBC

N▲N▼ - violinist, DJ and activist, N▲N▼ is a Brazilian black woman that considers herself a dyke - rather than lesbian - as an intertwining between sexual orientation and gender identity.

/// SESSION 4: Bi/pan experiences

VIVANJA - art historian and model, Vivanja lived in Rio, Paris and Lisbon. She identifies as a bisexual woman, even though she’s critical of the term.

AURORA PINHO - singer, musician and performance artist, Aurora is a Portuguese trans woman who also identifies herself as pansexual, and brings fluid sexuality into her edgy artwork. - TBC

//// SESSION 5: Trans experiences

IVVI ROMÃO - dancer, artist & model, IVVI is a trans woman from Brazil that has been on a journey to campaign a fundraiser online to finance the procedures for her transition, turning that into an art platform itself.

LUAN OKUN - Brazilian performance artist and trans man living in Lisbon, Luan is known for a very powerful artwork that intertwines transness, body and decolonial thinking. - TBC

CIBELLE - multi-artist and activist based in Berlin and featured @ Artist Who Code exhibition, Cibelle is a non-binary individual that considers themselves as “not a woman, nor a man - an aevtar interface”. - TBC

GADUTRA - non-binary tattoo artist, photographer and DJ, Gadutra is a creative force in Lisbon’s queer scene, using his artistic expression as means to raise questions about binary perceptions.

1 Like

We are still waiting for @jcatnear’s feedback, but what do you think of starting the series on Monday, May 9th, at 9am PST (16h GMT)?

Seems fine with me if it’s good with everyone else, I won’t be able to attend one or two sessions if we start then but hopefully they’re recorded!

1 Like

Thank you so much @carrapatoso @gbonfiglioli for our conversation today!

A reminder of the topics we covered for our reference and to be transparent about next steps (cc: @Community_Moderator @David_NEAR @jlwaugh):


We have our dates!

Session #1 will be on May 13 (exclusive to NEAR Concierge Service Community Moderators) and the sessions will conclude after six weeks on June 17!
We are very intentionally letting these sessions lead us into Pride Month.

All sessions will fall weekly on Fridays between these dates at 7-8am PST / 10-11am EST / 2-3pm GMT / 7:30-8:30pm IST to best match the hosts’ schedules, the time range given that’s compatible with the NEAR Concierge Service mods’ preferred meeting time, and before any usual weekly NEAR Community programming.


Other decisions reached:

  • the sessions will be hosted on a NF team member’s Zoom account (:wink: @David_NEAR :wink:) and the 5 public sessions will be added to the Community Events Calendar (nearguilds.com/events)

  • we also agreed upon increasing the budget to an even USD $8,000 to allow for the addition of 2 more guests:

    • after completing the Community Payout Google Form and undergoing the usual payout process, an invoice should be sent instead to community@near.foundation for the payouts
    • half the payout can be claimed at beginning of May; the latter half at beginning of June
    • the hosts, guests, and other contributors will be paid through the DAO so the funds will be transferred there
    • we discussed allocating a portion of the budget to NEARDROPs (neardrop.io) to help onboard these new individuals who are giving their time, energy, and expertise to participate
  • We will record only the beginning of the sessions (not recording the Q&A for attendees’ comfort).


Action Items:

  • Rebecca:

    • Set up TG group for more agile coordination - DM me your TG account names please @carrapatoso @gbonfiglioli
    • Discuss with team to coordinate social marketing support from Community channels
    • look into live simultaneous translation / CC compatible with Zoom: Portuguese to English
  • Thiago & Gustavo:

    • finalize guest speakers and remaining logistical details
    • send along promo visuals when ready through new TG group (recognizing Zoom links will be needed for this)
    • look into live simultaneous translation / CC compatible with Zoom: Portuguese to English
    • follow-up toward end of April to coordinate a kick-off meeting with Rebecca & team at the beginning of May (date TBD) to run through production/Zoom settings and final details
3 Likes

Hey @carrapatoso I don’t think weekends are the best time for this because most of our Mods are taking day offs on Sat-Sun and a considerable number of ppl on Mon-Friday as well :slight_smile:

Better to plan it for weekdays but let’s also take into account that on weekdays we have our weekly Ops calls (4 different Calls) AMA’s (Tue-Wed) mostly during 01.00pm to 05.00pm and on later times Asian people go to sleep might so probably won’t catch up and for earlier times European, African and American people probably won’t.

so, I suggest these times -All times are UTC-
Monday : none (but 03.30PM-04.00PM if you have to!)
Tuesday :02.00PM-04.00PM :white_check_mark:
Wednesday : none, we have 3 calls that day
Thursday :02.00PM-04.00PM :white_check_mark:
Friday : none (but 02.00PM-04.00PM if you have to!)

These are the best times for Concierge team. @jcatnear @mecsbecs @David_NEAR @gbonfiglioli
Normally I schedule community AMA’s on Tue or Thu but I can make adjustments accordingly if you pick and let me know the best joint times asap.

Hey! Not sure where the weekends info came, but we are proposing to be on Fridays, at 14h GMT. Considering your post, I think we are fine? Let me know if we are mistaken and missed anything else. Tks!

oh It’s ok then! (no weekends :slight_smile: )
but as I say Tuesday and Thursday will be best for Concierge team most will be able to attend (18 ppl)
on Friday more people will miss the session!

Hey! Oh, sorry to hear this, but discussing with @mecsbecs Friday at 2pm UTC was the best option for all agendas. And considering your message, I believe we are fine? Let me know if I am misunderstanding anything. Tks!

Hey @mecsbecs!

Following up in our conversation, we will need to fill the gap from our 50% initial payment.

We paid Gustavo (here) and myself (here), but inadvertly we left the rest in the DAO.

From April 8 (when we receive the 50%) to today, NEAR had a severe drop which made the funds pratically disapear:

The payments/receivements are the following of TibiraDAO:

Who Payment Receivement
NEAR Foundation $3,751.15
Gustavo (50%) -$2,350.00
Thiago (50%) -$171.50
Total $1,229.65
What is left in the wallet $211.00
Gap $1,018.65

What is the procedure?

Let me know what you think.

Tks!

1 Like