[Air-L] Difficult conversations

[Nicholas John]

Dear all

I have been following the discussion here very closely throughout what has
been a very long day. I wish to address a couple of points from the various
posts that have been sent.

For those of you who don’t know me, I am, among other things, the President
of AoIR, Jewish, and Israeli. I have skin in the game. For some, this may
disqualify me from speaking; for others, my lived experience may be
considered relevant. If you know me, you likely know my views on the
conflict and the current government. I do not feel a need to share them
here. For the sake of openness, though, I can say that I am yet to see a
statement about the conflict that does justice to the complexities of the
situation.

My primary concern right now, therefore, is for AoIR. I think it is already
clear that it is unlikely that the AoIR community will agree on a statement
about the current situation in the Middle East. So far, the discussion has,
by and large, been pretty civil, though I am extremely concerned that it
might stop being so. Let me remind everyone of our code of conduct (
https://aoir.org/codeofconduct) and the rules of use (
https://aoir.org/mailing-lists/mailing-list-rules-and-etiquette) for the
mailing list.

On a practical note, and after conversations with the exec members who were
available today, the conversation on this list will be slowed down a bit.
Every message will get through (unless it really shouldn’t), though not
immediately. It’s 1am where I am, but tomorrow morning I will release a
bunch of messages, and will continue to do so through the day.

I know that this conflict has already cost people real friendships within
academia. It must not cost us our community.

Nik


Nicholas John
Associate Professor
President, Association of Internet Researchers
Department of Communication and Journalism
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem