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Community Guidelines
Community Guidelines
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Community Guidelines

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This document comprises a guide for productive engagement on Slack and our general posting guidelines and policies.

Who is Sentient Futures for?

Our Slack community is for people who are motivated and serious about improving the welfare of future sentient beings. Whether you're just starting out or already deeply involved, if you share a sincere desire to reduce suffering and contribute thoughtfully to this cause, you're welcome here. We aim to foster high-quality discussions in an inclusive, respectful environment.

Executive Summary

Our community focuses on the following key areas and norms. Please try to keep posts aligned to these:

🌌 Future-focused

We're focused on making the future go well for all sentient beings - rather than being focused on present-day impacts.

👔 Professionalism

Post quality and thoughtful content that’s relevant to our mission. Use a real name (or realistic alias) and preferably a profile picture, so others know who they’re talking to (guidance here).

👁️ Sentient beings

We care about the wellbeing of all sentient beings - animals, artificial minds… if it can feel - we care.

✍️ User-friendliness

Keep posts concise, clear, and well-formatted. Share extra detail in threads so that main channels stay easy to scan. More on this here.

⚖️ Cause neutrality

We think AI is a crucial consideration, but we welcome all discussions with the potential for outsized future impact.

🤝 Open and collaborative

Be kind, ask questions, and look for ways to help others. We’re here to learn, build, and solve problems together.

Your Responsibilities in Slack

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🙏🏽 Keep it clear and concise

  • Reply in thread. If you want to respond to a message, use the "Reply in thread" function - do not reply as a top-level message in the channel (the original poster will not be notified about your reply). When replying in thread, do not use the "reply on channel" feature.
  • Use concise and helpful formatting. People are more likely to act on your message if it's concise and well-formatted.
    • If it’s half a computer screen or more, it’s probably too long. Post a summary and put details into a thread.
    • Bold key parts of the message to help people scan it quickly (e.g. bold 1-2 key pieces of info).
    • Do not use attention-grabbing formatting practices, such as excessive capitalization, emojis, or image attachments. Messages that use distracting formatting will be removed.
  • Send a single message. Write out your content in a single message or, if too long (~half a computer screen), add to your own message in the thread. If you want to edit something, please do so in your original message, as opposed to an additional message.
    • It is preferred that you post your message in the channel where it is most relevant to avoid making duplicate channel messages unless it is truly necessary.
  • Give context to what you share. Do not just forward a link (to a resource or an event) - give a short summary, and say why you are recommending it.
  • Remove excessive links and link previews. Please add links over words rather than pasting full URLs. When adding links, Slack may show a preview beneath your message. To keep the channel uncluttered, close these previews by selecting the small x. Especially if multiple previews take up too much vertical space. However, if your message is relatively short (about half a computer screen or one mobile screen), you may leave one preview visible.
  • Use mentions and channel references. Please tag people with @+name so they receive a notification, and refer to channels using #+channel-name. This helps direct messages to the right people and keeps discussions organized.
  • If you don’t feel comfortable with English, check out our Language page to see how we try to overcome language barriers!

🌎Languages

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🎯 Stay on topic

  • Litmus test 🧪: does reading this help someone (including you) start or advance their journey to improve the welfare of future sentient beings?
  • If you want to share something that is not obviously related to our field, but you think it is, please add your thoughts on its relevance. For example: "This advancement in AI could reduce reliance on animal testing! I think that this might be promising moving forward, because XY."
  • We acknowledge that there are a number of fields and topics related to our mission, such as future wild animal welfare or philosophical reflection. We have started channels for many such topics. You can also suggest an additional channel in the #09-feedback channel.
  • Make sure you're posting on the right channel. We have many channels (see channel guide) and members and it can get busy. Please consider if there is a more appropriate channel to post it on.
    • Cross-posting: Pick only one General channel (these are numbered) that is the best fit for your message and 1-2 additional channels at most. Do not cross-post to multiple General channels. See ⭐Channels Guide for more info.
      • 📰Job posting guidelines
  • Share positive, action-oriented resources that help others.
  • Limits to political posts. Please do not advocate for specific candidates, referendums, etc., although you may advocate for specific policies and viewpoints.
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👸🏼 Self-promote respectfully

  • Posting frequency: It's okay to recruit others to your cause, but please limit postings of your initiative to once a month or genuinely extraordinary occasions (i.e., occasions that you would expect to happen at most a few times a year).
  • Cross-posting: Pick only one default channel (identifiable by the channel name #01-#10) that is the best fit for your message and at most 2 specific channels. Do not cross-post to multiple default channels. See ⭐Channels Guide for more info.
  • Ask for skilled help: If you ask people to engage with your initiative, it should be a request for meaningful help in a professional or skilled capacity. We are not primarily a platform for mass communication, but a community of highly engaged professionals.
    • ✅ Do:
      • Share your project and ask for ways to make it more effective.
      • Ask for a volunteer to carry out skilled volunteering/paid work for your project.
      • Ask expert advice on an important topic
    • 👋 Only in limited capacity:
      • You can share surveys and ask for people to subscribe to a newsletter, if the target audience is specific and likely to be found in our community in #02-request-help (e.g., a survey for non-profit founders), or if the content in question is unusually impactful.
    • ❌ Don't: Ask to buy or use your product, invest in any (especially your company’s) stock, or solicit donations for your own organization or other organisations
  • Do not spam:
    • If you DM someone to engage with your initiative, your request must be clearly individually crafted for this person in particular.
      • 🧪 Litmus test: if your message could be copy-pasted to even one member other than its recipient and still make sense (except for names), then it’s not personalized enough.
    • Automated mass messaging is prohibited and will result in an immediate deactivation of your account.
    • If someone reaches out with a message that looks spammy or automated, please see the section "Reporting and Feedback" below.
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⛔ Handling violations

Here are some examples of what the Sentient Futures core team might do in response to a post that is not in line with these guidelines:

  • We might ask you to clarify or edit the post, e.g. in cases where its relevance to our field is unclear (but existent), if its phrasing is off, or formatting is too confusing.
  • If the message is posted in the wrong channel, we might delete it and send you a copy with some guidance, so that you can choose the correct channel to post in.
  • If the message is off-topic for sf, or exceeds the self-promotion limits, we might delete it, give you a heads-up, and explain what could have been an acceptable alternative (e.g. "Post it later" or "Consider posting in a different community").
  • In case of repeated or severe violations, we might disable the member's account and email them an explanation. For more details, see our 🛡️Moderation & Banning Policy.

How to Engage in Productive Discussions

We believe that productive discussions and constructive disagreements are vital for progress and the development of the Sentient Futures field. In order to ensure that they are genuinely productive, we ask our community members to adhere to the following norms:

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💡 Be curious

  • Guideline: Approach discussions with a Scout mindset - aimed at discovering the truth rather than winning an argument. Focus on understanding the situation as accurately as possible. Aim to inform, rather than persuade and be open to changing your views. When you disagree with someone, approach it with curiosity; try to work out why they think what they think, and what you can learn from each other.
  • Reason: Approaching discussions with a scout mindset and being genuinely curious makes it more likely for everyone involved to arrive at the most plausible conclusion. Additionally, not displaying such openness and curiosity may cause others to disengage from discussions if it doesn’t seem that you would change your mind anyway.
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Example:
  • Rather than: "AI can’t be effectively used to monitor animal welfare in aquaculture."
  • "I’m skeptical about using AI for monitoring animal welfare in aquaculture because I haven’t seen much evidence supporting its effectiveness in this context. Do you know of any successful applications or studies in this area?"
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Notes:

You may be always and genuinely open to change your mind, but it may not come across as such. Some pointers to display genuine curiosity are:

  • Don’t be more confident about your claims than the reasons you cite warrant.
  • Acknowledge and communicate your uncertainties.
  • Acknowledge relevant counterpoints that others may raise.
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🔎 Be clear

  • Guideline: Provide clarity about what you believe, your reasons for believing it, and what would cause you to change your mind. This is especially important for strong, bold, or crucial claims. You don’t need to be an expert or accredited in any way to discuss things. Just be aware and clear about your uncertainties and level of confidence.
  • Reason: Being clear about what you believe, why you believe it and what would cause you to change your mind keeps discussions focused and avoids misunderstandings.
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Example:
  • Rather than: "AI will solve animal welfare issues."
  • "I believe AI has significant potential to address animal welfare concerns, particularly in monitoring farm conditions, based on this research [link] and early case studies [link]. I’m open to reconsidering my view if (1) there’s more data showing AI tools are ineffective or biased in real-world applications, or (2) evidence suggests we are over-relying on AI solutions at the expense of other critical approaches in the field."
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Notes:
  • We don’t require community members to be as explicit in all their claims as the example above. Epistemic clarity is especially important for strong claims (e.g., absolute claims like “X is always because of Y.”), bold claims (i.e., claims that many people may disagree with) and crucial claims (i.e., claims about the core disagreement in a discussion). Furthermore, you should be open and expecting to providing epistemic clarity when asked.
  • Your reasons for believing something don’t have to be of a certain scientific rigour. It is more important that you acknowledge and communicate your reasons. They can be anecdotal (e.g., “This is just my personal experience, but I feel like…”) or vague (e.g.,”This is an intuition, I can’t quite track it, but…”).
  • Some relevant concepts are epistemic legibility, reasoning transparency, and Double-Crux
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📌 Be constructive

  • Guideline: Try to focus on important questions, and the important parts of important questions, to keep content useful and to the point. Respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Try to identify the crux of your disagreements and discuss them explicitly. Don't derail conversations in irrelevant directions.
    • Posts in the Slack should relate to Sentient Futures’ mission and focus (improving the welfare of future sentient beings).
    • Posts in specific channels should stay on topic and contribute meaningfully to the channel's focus.
  • Reason: We want to ensure productive and targeted conversations that are action-relevant. Derailing conversations, deliberately straw-manning other peoples’ positions and focusing on minor aspects of a proposition that are not relevant to the core of your disagreement will likely cause a discussion to be unnecessarily lengthy without any actionable or valuable outcome on either side.
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Example:
  • Member 1: "I believe AI could be a game-changer for farmed animal welfare."
  • Rather than Member 2: "That’s unrealistic, AI hasn’t even solved basic human problems yet!"
  • Member 2: "I can see how AI has potential, especially in large-scale monitoring, but I’m concerned that current AI tools are still limited when it comes to ethical considerations and implementation challenges. Could these limitations outweigh the benefits?"
  • Explainer: While AI’s effectiveness is debatable, it's unlikely that Member 1 meant to imply that AI can solve all welfare issues. The stronger interpretation might focus on how AI could assist in certain areas like monitoring or automation rather than solving everything.
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Notes:
  • If you are unsure about what the strongest plausible interpretation or the core of the disagreement is, you can always just ask.
    • Member 2: "Are you suggesting AI can solve the main challenges in nonhuman welfare, or are you referring to something more specific?"
    • Or Member 2: "Could you elaborate on how AI might help in this context? I’m concerned about ethical implications that may limit its effectiveness."
  • One test to ensure you are on-topic is “If I convinced them/they convinced me of this point I am tackling, would we agree on the original question?”
    • For example, even if Members 1 and 2 agree on AI's current limitations, they might still disagree about whether AI should be promoted as a solution for nonhuman welfare.
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💙 Be kind

  • Guideline: Stay civil, at the minimum. Don’t sneer or be snarky. Assume good faith.
    • Avoid unnecessary rudeness, offensiveness, mockery, harassment or threats of violence. Hate speech or content that promotes hate based on identity.
    • Avoid deliberate provocation, flamebait, or trolling.
    • Misgendering deliberately and/or deadnaming gratuitously is not ok, although mistakes are expected and fine (please accept corrections, though).
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Examples:

Beyond the obvious cases, such as insults, aggression or cynicism. There are several more subtle ways in which your communication may be perceived as hostile. These include:

  • Using condescending language or tone, such as “This should be obvious”
  • Dismissing someone’s argument without consideration, e.g., “That’s ridiculous.”
  • Making passive-aggressive comments, like “I guess some people just don’t see the potential of AI”
  • Making assumptions about someone’s character based on limited information, e.g., “I guess you are just not very open-minded.”
  • Ignoring, mocking or discrediting someone’s contribution, e.g., “Your so-called experiments were flawed and non-sensical”
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Notes:
  • Whether you are being kind or not
  • Written communication is more likely to cause misunderstanding and might therefore more easily lead to heated debates. Assume good faith from other community members and be extra kind and clear. Often times, emojis 😊 are very helpful to communicate that you are still trying to be kind while having a disagreement.
  • Small differences between community members are likely exacerbated and over-emphasized not despite, but because of our commonalities. Keep in mind that we are all here for the same reason.
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⛔ Things to avoid

  • Materials advocating major harm or illegal activities, or materials that may be easily perceived as such.
  • Deliberate misinformation or manipulation.
  • Other behavior that interferes with good discourse.

We will enforce these norms if we find that violating them has led or will lead to hostile, unproductive, bad faith, or off-topic discussions in accordance with our:

🛡️Moderation & Banning Policy

Our Anti-Harassment Policy

Our community is dedicated to providing a harassment-free experience for everyone.

We follow this code of conduct for our harassment guidelines as well as this general Code of Conduct for our Slack Space:

👍Slack Code of Conduct

Guidelines May Evolve

The above are the guidelines for engagement in our community based on our experience so far! As the community grows, the guidelines will be evolving as well, and over time we will cover more topics.

Reporting and Feedback

If you have feedback, concerns, or experienced something less-than-great, please reach out to any of our Admins on Slack (@Constance Li or @Sam Chapman) or send an anonymous message.