Re: GNOME Speaker Guidelines

[Brian Cameron <brian cameron oracle com>]

Patryk:

> Did you miss the common sense part? If the rules are vague, everything
> can be proved to be "against the rules".

These rules are for the GNOME Foundation community and the GNOME
Foundation community will decide when the rules apply and when they
have been broken.  I think the GNOME Foundation community is an
intelligent, highly educated bunch, and I do not think we need to be so
concerned that these guidelines will be used in an abusive or frivolous
manner.

If, over time, we find that our speaker guidelines are being used in a
way that is hampering honest, free speech, then this is something we
can discuss and address in the future.  Our guidelines are likely to be
a living document that will be modified as necessary to ensure that
they are used and understood properly.

The goal we are trying to achieve with having Speaker Guidelines is to
try and help foster an environment where people are more sensitive,
aware, and focused on productive discourse.

> I believe the rules were defined to stop RMS from making jokes. If you
> don't like his sense of humor, don't invite him. You don't have to ban
> all kinds of jokes and sarcasm along the way.

I have a few things to say about this.

1) There is no benefit in making this issue personal.  Over the past
   2.5 years that I have been on the board, the board has been asked
   to help address a situation where someone has been offensive at
   least a half-dozen times.  The Speaker Guidelines were created to
   help deal with this class of problems, not to deal with any
   particular person who may have been offensive at any particular time.
   Please lets avoid derailing this discussion by turning it into
   a discussion about a particular person or situation.

2) When situations do happen, the board is often criticized that we
   are slow or ineffective at addressing them.  One reason these
   problems are difficult to address is that we do not have any clear
   ground rules.  Considering how difficult it is to get our community
   to agree on even simple ground rules, I hope people in the GNOME
   Foundation community can appreciate the difficulty and frustration
   the board has trying to address problems when they arise.

3) There is no problem with anyone telling jokes in general.  That
   said, there is always a risk when telling a joke that someone might
   be offended.  So the burden is on the speaker to ensure that any
   joke is appropriate for the audience at a GNOME technical
   conference.  Humor that is at the expense of a minority or which
   encourage discrimination is not appropriate for a GNOME technical
   conference regardless of who says them.  But this does not mean that
   jokes are always bad, or that jokes by any particular speaker are
   always bad.

   Also, sometimes people say offensive things without really
   understanding that their words are offensive, or would be interpreted
   in that way.  The GNOME Foundation is highly diverse and made up of
   people from around the world, and people from different cultures or
   backgrounds do not always share the same sensitivities.  So, when
   situations happen, it is important to have ground rules to help
   educate our speakers so that they understand how to be more
   considerate and effective speakers in the future.

Brian