Dealing with group *-fail, Part 2

This is a followup to my earlier post.

In the comments, siderea pointed out that most of the real *scandals* of recent years have not been because of isolated individuals, though they often started that way. They erupted into scandals only when the offending individuals are supported (overtly or implicitly) by the leaders of the community.

So "pushing the assholes out" is not really the right approach. It's to clearly establish, and enforce, what standards a community has. Bringing pressure on the leadership of a community can, and often does, prompt those leaders to act to correct bad situations. Often the leaders were unaware (or insufficiently aware) of these problems, and just speaking up is enough to inspire action. Sometimes the leaders are an *active* part of the problem. In these cases, making a public stink may cause these problem leaders to reevaluate their problematic stance, or potentially resign, or be removed by election or some other process. In the worst case, if the leaders are both problematic and holding onto their power, then at least it has become clearly established what kind of leaders they are, and, by extension, what the organization is willing to tolerate, so that members (or potential members) know what they're getting into. In *that* situation, I certainly encourage people to vote with their feet.

Last year's ReaderCon incident is an interesting case study. When the problem was first brought to the community leaders, they acted badly. But as community pressure kept up, that set of leaders resigned, en masse, and a new set was elected, who acted quickly to (re-)establish community standards.

I've been mulling this over for a few days, but was particularly inspired to post by this announcement from Kickstarter. It details the problem, what actions the leadership of KS did (and didn't) take, and why. Most importantly, it established clear new standards that will hopefully prevent that particular offense from re-occurring. It's a *model* of a well-structured apology, and appropriate corrective action. I applaud them.

While writing this post, I took a short break and was reading LJ, and saw *another* story to illustrate my point. Exodus International, a decades-old ministry devoted to 'curing' homosexuality in Christians has decided to shut themselves down and apologize for all the harm they caused. Even a group that takes toxic ideas as its central focus can, in time, come to realize its own toxicity.