Recusal

For our purposes, recusal can be declared at six levels:

1. A bias is declared for posterity, but is not considered severe enough to warrant disengaging from the topic
2. A commitment to not vote on a certain topic
3. A commitment to not be the primary point person on a project, proposal, or accountability proceeding
4. A commitment to abstain from engaging with or commenting on a project, proposal, or accountability proceeding altogether
5. A request to not be involved in any way with the topic at hand, including being privy to as few details as possible
6. The leader is directly involved in a situation under mediation, and will be engaging as if they were a regular user

Leaders may recuse themselves at any level (except 1) without specifying the reason, in case it involves sensitive information they'd rather not be public knowledge. Leaders are heavily encouraged to withhold the recusal reason in cases where it involves sensitive private matters or traumatic incidents.

In cases where the gravity of the reason is so heavy it might bias the other leaders' judgement just by hearing it, openly revealing such info in the process of declaring a recusal will itself be considered a violation of the CoI policy, and a failure to properly recuse oneself. If one wants to air such information, they must do so in the course of a formal mediation process at their own pace and comfort level. Such violations will generally receive much lighter consequences than other failures of recusal, unless they happen repeatedly.