Welcome Beginners

For our privacy rights movement to grow, we must bring more people in. To accomplish this, it's fundamental to discuss privacy in ways that are accessible to newcomers who aren't familiar with the basic concepts yet.

Here's how you can improve your advocacy work to make it more approachable to beginners:

We cannot grow our movement without newcomers

Beginners and newcomers are indispensable to our privacy rights movement. Without them, we cannot grow. And without growth, we cannot win.

To attract new people to our communities and our cause, we need to create an environment that is welcoming, safe, and pleasant to be in. When newcomers face rudeness and criticism, they leave. And when they leave, we lose.

Kindness, patience, and compassion are the first steps to attract and retain newcomers. Then, knowledge accessibility is vital. There are many things you can do in your daily advocacy to help with this.

What to keep in mind to make beginners feel welcomed

• Beware of acronyms: Do not assume that everyone knows the acronyms you use in your material, even the most common such as VPN (Virtual Private Network). Always make sure to write the whole expression at least once before carrying on with the acronym's letters only.

• Explain technologies: As for acronyms, don't assume that everyone has the same knowledge as you when it comes to technology, even the technologies that seem basic to you. Perhaps you have been in tech for so long that you have forgotten not everyone knows what an Operating System (OS) is. Nevertheless, make sure to provide a short explanation or example to keep your content welcoming to beginners. If you talk about Operating Systems, perhaps also add "such as macOS, Windows, or Linux" to add context that could make your point more accessible.

• Start with the basics: Depending on the context, do not neglect to discuss the most basic privacy concepts before jumping in the juicy tech. Fundamental ideas such as consent, data collection, data storage, or encryption are important to master in order to understand the benefits and dangers related to data privacy. Specific tech and services come and go, but fundamental ideas remain. Anyone who comprehends these core concepts will have a much easier time understanding all that follows.

• No stupid questions: There are no stupid questions, only impatient answerers. Whenever a beginner asks a question that seems obvious to you, refrain from replying with something dry or snarky such as "Google it," or its privacy-equivalent "DuckDuckGo it." This only has the effect of chasing people away from our community. If you don't feel like helping, just reply nothing. But if you do want to help, try to find an answer for them. If you are in a rush, something like "Hey! Sorry I don't have the answer, but maybe this resource might be helpful to you!" or "Sorry I'm not sure, but perhaps asking on this forum might get you an answer."

• Stay patient and compassionate: Always stay patient with beginners and newcomers (and everyone else, actually). To keep people fighting with us and grow our movement, we cannot afford to lose anyone just because we felt angry that day. Develop your empathy skills to provide support and reply with compassion. People stay where they feel safe and welcomed. Make them feel safe and welcomed.

• Do not confound lack of knowledge with lack of intelligence: Everyone has a different set of knowledge. Lack of knowledge doesn't mean someone isn't intelligent, it just means they haven't come in contact with this area of knowledge yet. They probably know a lot of things you don't know at all. Be careful not to sound patronizing when communicating with newcomers (or anyone else really). This is a behavior sadly too common in the privacy community, and we all need to work on this to create an environment that is more welcoming and enjoyable for everyone.

More resources

• Building a community for beginners (Jennifer Konikowski)

• Creating a welcoming space for beginners (Raquel Moss)

• Bring kindness back to open source (Scott Hanselman)

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