This post was moving, thank you for writing it. I have dealt with a similar situation, and found it impossible. I've dealt with that impossibility by trying to justify what I've done, and absolve myself. Your post is forthright: you killed the moths. We can move on from it, but we don't need to rationalize it.

Thanks for the honest and thoughtful response. I have a couple follow up questions. Since this does occur, I think it would be useful for the community to know what risks they are taking if they choose to report to the CH team.

I am reading what you stated as "reporting something to us does not mean that we will never take action against the person who reported to us." I see two possible scenarios here, so want to get clarification on what you mean.

One scenario, James reports something to you. You conclude at some point that James has engaged in misconduct, based on reports from people outside of the CH team. Maybe you collected those reports in the process of investigating James's claim. Maybe someone just separately came to you on an unrelated matter about James. Regardless, it ends up that you have some credibly allege James of misconduct, so you act on that.

Second scenario, James reports something to you. In talking to James, you find him to be abrasive, unreasonable, and generally quite unpleasant to interact with. You grow to have serious concerns about him based on how he's interacted with you. He's not engaged in any misconduct (eg, he's not sexualy harassing you or anything), just generally displaying an unstable personality. You do not receive any reports of misconduct against James.

Have you taken action against someone like "James" in either scenario? Or just in the first scenario?

My second question is: Would it be possible for you to share the percentage of time you've taken action against a reporter over the last, say, 5 years?

Thanks again.

P.S. This whole OCB scenario seems like it would be very hard, Julia, and I really appreciate how forthcoming you have been about it. While you admit to making mistakes, I hope the wider community sees that the real mistakes in the CH's response came from flawed processes more than from any one individual. We all make mistakes in our jobs, and unfortunately yours are publicized more than most. It's a tough job and I wish you the best

This is hard and that should be recognized. It seems you all are taking this extremely seriously and that should be commended.

The recent discussion around Nonlinear got me wondering about one aspect of CH reports I hadn't considered before.

Has the CH team ever spoken negatively about the person who made a report to people outside the CH team?

I'm thinking of a scenario like: Steve makes an accusation against Lina. The CH team interacts with Steve and through this interaction comes to view him as somewhat of an unstable character. Even though no one has reported Steve, the CH team advises against hiring Steve to other institutions within the EA space, based on their interactions they had with Steve when the reported about Lina's behavior.

+1 for full post. And huge congrats. This must've been incredibly difficult work, for an ambitious goal, and you made it happen! So great.

I will be traveling to Berlin soon and this is so helpful! Thank you so much!

Another +1 that it's surprisingly easy to get experts to talk to you. Once for a job I had to find out this super obscure thing about the Federal Reserve. Instead of spending hours trying to research it on my own (which I don't think would have gone anywhere), I found a Fed expert at a think tank. He also didn't know the answer to the question, but helped immensely in tracking an answer down. I was surprised by how much time he spent on it!

If you're becoming an expert in something neglected, chances are there won't be good public writing about it, so you should really lean on speaking with experts.

Loved it! And the recipes. And learning how to cook with it more effectively too, super helpful.

Could you explain what you perceive as the correct remedy in instance #1?

The implication seems like the solution you prefer is having the community member isolated from official community events. But I'm not sure what work "uncomfortable" is doing here. Was the member harassing the community builder? Because that would seem like justification for banning that member. But if the builder is just uncomfortable due to something like a personal conflict, it doesn't seem right to ban the member.

But maybe I'm not understanding what your corrective action would be here?

Can you share what you mean by "intimidating behavior"? How does the community health team define, "intimidating behavior"?