Featured Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash Note: Every link in this post goes to the same place: WebAIM’s guide to accessible hyperlinks. I’m using this link as an example for demonstrating accessible and inaccessible linking styles. Let’s Talk About Links In Blog Posts There’s a particular style of linking common in blog posts that seems to date from the early days of the blog-o-sphere, in which bloggers embed a series of links in the body of their blogRead more

Building and maintaining healthy teams is real work that takes time and effort–especially if you’re trying to organize people to get something done. Doing that work within a flat or “leaderless” team can be rewarding–but the work of managing doesn’t disappear if you decide not to have managers.Read more

[CW: Rape, torture] This trope literalizes the notion that survivors of sexual violence aren’t necessarily people anymore. That if you’re deprived of agency over your body even briefly, you can permanently lose your humanity.Read more

Telling people to “assume good intent” is a sign that if they come to you with a concern, you will minimize their feelings, police their reactions, and question their perceptions. It tells marginalized people that you don’t see codes of conduct as tools to address systemic discrimination, but as tools to manage personal conflicts without taking power differences into account.Read more

It is a truth universally acknowledged that as soon as a marginalized group develops words to describe their oppression, their oppressors will label those words ‘slurs.’Read more

When you tell people that even acknowledging the existence of bisexuality renders a book ‘too mature’ for kids, you’re contributing to a hostile environment for bi and other queer kids. By treating their stories as dirty, you’re treating them as dirty. Read more

When you’re interested in donating money to help improve conditions for women in tech, you need to be aware that clueless and unscrupulous people will take advantage of your good intentions to line their own pockets. Before you donate, assess projects with a critical eye. What is the project runner’s track record? What’s their angle? Who are they centering? Who’s getting paid?Read more

Misconceptions about disability and disabled people are still widespread–and the Science Fiction community is no exception. Science fiction and fantasy fans consume a steady diet of fiction that erases, marginalizes, and misrepresents disabled people and our experiences.Read more

So you’ve been called out. You are baffled. Shocked. Why would someone shame you in public like that? It isn’t fair! Why didn’t they talk to you privately?

Most likely, for one or more of the following reasons.Read more

Companies that get called out for not taking into account how your products can harm marginalized people could do worse than to follow Chen’s example. He apologized, acknowledged the problem, committed to trying to fix it, and worked to get an opt-out solution out the door quickly.Read more

A good diversity panel doesn’t try to tackle the entire ‘diversity issue’ in a single hour. Instead, choose a more focused topic that will give panelists a chance to share their perspective and experience while grounding the discussion in something concrete, so it’s accessible to an audience that hasn’t necessarily done all their homework.Read more

[Content Warning: harassment, assault, bad event safety handling]

It’s important for community leaders to understand that enforcing standards of conduct is not about resolving a conflict between an abuser and their victim. It’s about protecting the community from abuse.Read more