Adrian Bunk writes ("Re: Code of Conduct at events"):
> 2. Formally defining what is correct and what is not is hard.We don't need a complete list of everything which is acceptable or unacceptable. It suffices to mention the things which cause trouble. > People from many different cultures meet at conferences, and if things > like hugs that are normal for some people are considered inappropriate > for others you need to inform people, not implement rules for passing > information about a cultural misunderstanding forever to future > conference organisers. If someone nonconsensually hugs me at a conference I will be very angry. (And I speak of someone who is often amenable to a hug.) The point of having a written down policy and printing in the README is so that the innocent cultural misunderstandings can be avoided. In practice no-one is going to take an isolated minor incident, without any aggravating factors, to the conference organisers. I would expect that if someone oversteps the mark they'll be told it's not OK, referred to the policy in the README, and then they will apologise to the aggrieved and that will be the end of it. If such a thing does get to the organisers they need do no more than make sure that the misunderstanding is now resolved. If the apology isn't forthcoming, or inappropriate behaviour continues, I would hope that the organisers, if they are told, would explain clearly to the perpetrator that they must stop. In which case the next conference obviously need to be told that this has happened so that the conrunning community isn't memoryless. > 1. What if the code of conduct conflicts with the law? > > Sounds strange, but Ian's proposal says "homophobia ... will not be > tolerated". > > What happens if a conference is in a country like Singapore or > Saudi Arabia where sex between men is illegal? > > You cannot punish someone for reporting a major crime [1] to the police. Have you ever been at a party where people smoked cannabis ? [*] If I were at such a party and decided that I ought to call the police, I would expect that the host would throw me out and never invite me back. I think no-one who heard about it would invite me at all any more. > [1] according to the local law, e.g. capital punishment in Saudi Arabia So, you are supposing a conference in Singapore, where two same-sex attendees who had been getting it on in their hotel room were reported to the police by another attendee and possibly executed ? I very much hope that this would result in the police's informant being completely ostracised from our community. I would find it impossible to be civil to such a person. Luckily this is all hypothetical. Ian. [*] I have no idea whether that would be illegal in your jurisdiction, so feel free to answer hypothetically. Simply attending such a party is not a crime in Britain. _______________________________________________ Spi-general mailing list [email protected] http://lists.spi-inc.org/listinfo/spi-general
