There are a handful of objections to having a CoC that I see coming up
in the discussions, that I would paraphrase as "It would be hard to
enforce" or "It can be used dishonestly" which beg the question, is it
really better to not bother at all?
If the answer is yes, then the only rules that remain would then be 1)
law enforcement and 2) whatever the organizers deem unacceptable. In
my opinion these are both inferior to having a CoC. Honestly if it's
going to be 1) ("Just don't break laws") I think I don't need to
elaborate why it would be a woefully deficient set of guidelines. A
lot of harassment isn't breaking the law but has no place in a
convention. Enough said.
This leaves option 2), organizers acting on their own set of
principles; but if that's the case, why not write out some of those
principles so we know what to expect? What kind of complaint would be
dismissed, what would be taken seriously? How do I know that the
volunteer or organizer isn't acting strongly on their own personal
biases rather than an agreed upon set of rules?
The other common form of objection is that "some rules are ridiculous,
and/or too specific". This is an easy answer. If organizers don't like
such rules, they can omit them from their code of conduct.
There is a balance though, between what is too vague and what is too
specific. If the only guideline is "don't be a jerk" or "have common
sense" be warned that people have differing concepts of "common
sense". Even "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is
incomplete because of different people's expectations. Imagine trying
to enforce that in the presence of a masochist, for example.
Rules change depending on the context and culture of the event. For
example, I would imagine there are a lot of things that are acceptable
at Burning Man that would get you kicked out of most origami cons. Or
maybe you want to run a convention in the style of Burning Man? Even
if the only rule is solely "Don't break laws", it's better to have
that explicitly stated. That Code of Conduct is an opportunity for
convention organizers to be *transparent* about how things are run,
and to define the culture of the convention. This is great for
newcomers too, who might not know what to expect otherwise.
These are my thoughts as an "old-timer" of many conventions, origami
and otherwise.
Brian Chan
