Re: [guadec-list] anti-harassment policy
Hey, On Mon, Jul 07, 2014 at 03:08:52PM -0400, Hashem Nasarat wrote: Marina, Thank you for working on this! Christophe, Many of the concerns you brought up have been responded to in the following FAQ: http://www.ashedryden.com/blog/codes-of-conduct-101-faq#cocfaqnegative http://www.ashedryden.com/blog/codes-of-conduct-101-faq#cocfaqcensorship I don't want to keep this discussion going, but: - regarding the first faq item you link to, I agree that having a formal list of things that are considered as bad, plus some sanctions when someone does something wrong is good. This does not mean we cannot use a more positive phrasing before listing what is prohibited, and the sanctions if something were to go wrong - regarding the 2nd faq item, I did not say either that having this antiharassment policy was censorship, I specifically complained about the arbitrary ban on sexualized imagery which was added in the antiharassment policy, while it's only vaguely related to harassment. Christophe pgp9BqbiiDtSG.pgp Description: PGP signature ___ guadec-list mailing list guadec-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/guadec-list
Re: [guadec-list] anti-harassment policy
On Mon, Jul 07, 2014 at 10:51:21PM -0400, Marina Zhurakhinskaya wrote: On Mon, Jul 7, 2014 at 2:22 PM, Christophe Fergeau cferg...@gmail.com wrote: Sexual language and imagery are a common concern. If there are other types of concerns people think are worth listing, they can be added. E.g. it can be Sexual or violent language and imagery are not appropriate for any conference venue, including talks This is a common concern in some circles yes. What we seem to be doing here is assuming people are going to do bad (ie are going to be jerks), and to avoid this, we have to put ourselves in the position of censors. People will sometimes act as jerks either because they feel like it or because they don't realize how their actions affect others. This happens at technical conferences often. It happens at GUADEC rarely, but there have been a few incidents (most of them private). Uh? I was talking about explicitly banning public display of sexual imagery in the anti-harassment policy, I don't think these private incindents had something to do with this, did they? Having a policy doesn't mean we assume everyone will be a jerk, but we want to deter or know how to deal with a jerk-like behavior because it might happen. Well, public display of sexual imagery is not the only way of being a jerk, I'm not talking about the anti-harassement policy as a whole here. I can find plenty of offensive pictures which are not banned by the policy (for example, Muhammad pictures, especially caricatures would be a *very* bad thing to do). Why is the policy not banning that because some people could be jerks? Also, I remember https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-moXUALZtw caused some issues in a past GUADEC, but still we do nothing about this in the policy, and we try to prevent potential abuse of sexual imagery? http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/EMACS_virgins_joke I'm sorry, but I don't think we should be doing that. I'd rather assume people will do good, tell them we trust them to behave appropriately, and possibly reminding them to be wary of others' sensibilities. This seems much more positive to me and more rewarding for our community. We assume people will be good and abide by the anti-harassment policy. We have people of different genders and from different cultures attending, which is why spelling out what it means to behave appropriately is helpful. This was again in the context of the ban of sexual imagery, I was not talking about the anti-harassment policy as a whole. Also, how do we define 'sexual'? Is http://www.quandjeseraigrande.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Pub-Galeries-Lafayette-Jean-Paul-Goude1.jpg some sexual imagery which should be banned? (NB: this is an ad campaign from a big French department store prominently visible in Paris metro). Content which is OK in the US would probably be frowned upon/unsettling from some more 'traditionalist' countries or background. How do we set the bar here? I think we can set the bar to exclude images that convey a sexual message, because they are off-topic for GUADEC. What is a sexual message? Who will decide that? For some muslim, women's hair must be covered, or even most of the face ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil#Islam ) « The principal aim of the Muslim veil is to hide that which men find sexually attractive. ». GUADEC is a private event, and we can decide what is appropriate for it. If sexual images or language are not appropriate for it and we ask people not to use them, then using them is a harassing act. You can learn more about why people often feel that these types of images and language are harassing at technical conferences at http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-harassment_policy_resources#Sexualized_environment This is what I was saying at the beginning, I understand that sexualized images are a concern for 'geek feminists'. I expect that different kind of images will be a problem if there were vocal 'black geeks' or 'jewish geeks' communities. I'm also not saying sexualized imagery is ok, just that I don't see why this should be explicitly listed in that policy. Christophe pgpP6xGKW26q_.pgp Description: PGP signature ___ guadec-list mailing list guadec-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/guadec-list
Re: [guadec-list] anti-harassment policy
Hey, On Wed, Jul 09, 2014 at 11:49:10AM -0400, Marina Zhurakhinskaya wrote: If a participant engages in harassing behavior, the code of conduct support team members may [...] expel the participant from the conference with no refund for repeat or serious offense. Something I've been wondering in the last few days, can we concretely expel someone from the conference if they keep coming back in spite of us telling them they are no longer welcome and have been expelled? I'm afraid we won't be able to do much apart from kicking them out over and over when we notice they are present :( Christophe pgpTh9rGxoyd7.pgp Description: PGP signature ___ guadec-list mailing list guadec-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/guadec-list
Re: [guadec-list] anti-harassment policy
Hi, On Thu, Jul 10, 2014 at 9:28 AM, Christophe Fergeau cferg...@gmail.com wrote: Something I've been wondering in the last few days, can we concretely expel someone from the conference if they keep coming back in spite of us telling them they are no longer welcome and have been expelled? I'm afraid we won't be able to do much apart from kicking them out over and over when we notice they are present :( As you guessed, in such a case there is not much we can do. We could hire a bouncer but I hope everyone finds this as ridiculous as I do. If someone is really creating problems, we can (and should) call the police. So far I've only had time to reply to the technical questions that arised (phone numbers…) and not to the practical side of implementing a policy. Let me fix this. To begin with, I reverted the change by Pascal, as we didn't reach a consensus and publishing the policy Marina suggested is not ok. (Also I think some information I had on the page were missing, such as the number for SOS médecin) I've discussed this in private one-to-one conversations with several organization team members and everyone is uncomfortable with having such a policy. There are potential harassment victim in this group (female, black, fat…). The general feeling is that having a policy such as the long one Marina wrote: * intimidates everyone and establishes a climate of fear * is not more efficient than a shorter one such as the current https://www.guadec.org/policy/ version * encourages tl;dr (too long; didn't read) behaviour To be frank, I feel that pushing a lengthy policy is a form of harassment in itself and I'm getting tired of it. I see that board-list is CCed in this entire thread and I'm not sure I get the reason. If the board is the body that makes this decision, then we'll of course comply with the decision. Just know that the organization team disapproves the proposed policy. -- Alexandre Franke ___ guadec-list mailing list guadec-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/guadec-list
Re: [guadec-list] anti-harassment policy
On 10/07/2014, Alexandre Franke alexandre.fra...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, On Thu, Jul 10, 2014 at 9:28 AM, Christophe Fergeau cferg...@gmail.com wrote: Something I've been wondering in the last few days, can we concretely expel someone from the conference if they keep coming back in spite of us telling them they are no longer welcome and have been expelled? I'm afraid we won't be able to do much apart from kicking them out over and over when we notice they are present :( As you guessed, in such a case there is not much we can do. We could hire a bouncer but I hope everyone finds this as ridiculous as I do. If someone is really creating problems, we can (and should) call the police. So far I've only had time to reply to the technical questions that arised (phone numbers…) and not to the practical side of implementing a policy. Let me fix this. To begin with, I reverted the change by Pascal, as we didn't reach a consensus and publishing the policy Marina suggested is not ok. (Also I think some information I had on the page were missing, such as the number for SOS médecin) I've discussed this in private one-to-one conversations with several organization team members and everyone is uncomfortable with having such a policy. There are potential harassment victim in this group (female, black, fat…). The general feeling is that having a policy such as the long one Marina wrote: * intimidates everyone and establishes a climate of fear * is not more efficient than a shorter one such as the current https://www.guadec.org/policy/ version * encourages tl;dr (too long; didn't read) behaviour To be frank, I feel that pushing a lengthy policy is a form of harassment in itself and I'm getting tired of it. I see that board-list is CCed in this entire thread and I'm not sure I get the reason. If the board is the body that makes this decision, then we'll of course comply with the decision. Just know that the organization team disapproves the proposed policy. As a board member, I'm not sure that I get the reason either. The policy was put to the vote which was then abandoned, and the board has now been asked to agree on the policy without a vote (which will not happen as there is no consensus). The responsibility for organising the event has been delegated to the organising team, so I feel that it is up to you to choose what you want to do. Thanks for taking the time to organise the event and deal with the issues that have arisen. I hope that they will not distract you for much longer. -- Alexandre Franke -- https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/board-list From time to time confidential and sensitive information will be discussed on this mailing list. Please take care to mark confidential information as confidential, and do not redistribute this information without permission. ___ guadec-list mailing list guadec-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/guadec-list
