Re: [guadec-list] anti-harassment policy

[Alexandre Franke <alexandre franke gmail com>]

First of all, I'm pretty sure nobody in this discussion said there
should be no policy *at all*. There seems to be a misunderstanding
that this discussion is between those "for a policy" vs "those against
any form of policy" and it is not. Maybe those advocating a strong
policy could use a moment to think about it, maybe they'd see we're
not their enemies. As someone said elsewhere, "my heart sank a bit for
every email in the discussion" where people assumed we're not better
than that.

We said we'd comply with the decision, so the code of conduct will be
published. I don't think insisting on the fact that we're bad people
serves any purpose.

On Mon, Jul 14, 2014 at 4:12 PM, Matthew Garrett <mjg59 srcf ucam org> wrote:
> It's certainly
> possible for a conference to be successful without a strong CoC. It's
> absolutely possible for the vast majority of attendees to have a good
> time.

Here you're implying that having a soft code, however clear it is,
doesn't work when it comes to enforcement. I think that's the main
point we disagree on. I don't see how to fix this disagreement.

> There are many documented cases of harassment occurring. How many
> documented cases of people being unjustly restricted by a CoC have there
> been? If it's equally difficult to talk about both (which strikes me as
> unlikely - discussing harassment at conferences tends to get you
> sexualised slurs and threats of violence, discussing restrictions on
> freedom of speech tends to get you praise), that still seems like an
> argument that more people are affected by harassment than are affected
> by CoCs.

It took years before the people advocating strong policies got to the
point where they are now. I'd expect it will take time before the
people that feel oppressed get to a similar point, if they ever decide
to organize themselves in a similar fashion. But that will most
probably never happen as the latter group wouldn't want to harass
people (from the former group, or not) by insisting with their point
of view.

-- 
Alexandre Franke