I'd be happy to join this effort, and would like to suggest a friendly amendment. We need, as a community, to have an anti-harassment policy that governs ALL of our collective interactions (e.g., the chatroom, for example), not just for the conference. Roy
On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 2:16 PM, Bess Sadler <bess.sad...@gmail.com> wrote: > Dear Fellow Code4libbers, > > I hope I am not about to get flamed. Please take as context that I have > been a member of this community for almost a decade. I have contributed > software, support, and volunteer labor to this community's events. I have > also attended the majority of code4lib conferences, which have been amazing > and life-changing, and have helped me do my job a lot better. But, and I've > never really known how to talk about this, those conferences have also been > problematic for me a couple of times. Nothing like what happened to Noirin > Shirley at ApacheCon (see > http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Noirin_Shirley_ApacheCon_incident if > you're unfamiliar with the incident I mean) but enough to concern me that > even in a wonderful community where we mostly share the same values, not > everyone has the same definitions of acceptable behavior. > > I am watching the toxic fallout from the BritRuby conference cancellation > with a heavy heart (go search for "britruby conference cancelled" if you > want to catch up and/or get depressed). It has me wondering what more we > could be doing to promote diversity and inclusiveness within code4lib. We > have already had a couple of harassment incidents over the years, which I > won't rehash here, which have driven away members of our community. We have > also had other incidents that don't get talked about because sometimes one > can feel that membership in a community is more important than one's > personal boundaries or even safety. We should not be a community where > people have to make that choice. > > I would like for us to consider adopting an anti-harassment policy for > code4lib conferences. This is emerging as a best practice in the larger > open source software community, and we would be joining the ranks of many > other conferences: > http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Conference_anti-harassment/Adoption. > The Ada Initiative has a great discussion of why adopting an > Anti-Harrassment policy is a good choice for a conference to make, as well > as some example policy statements, here: > http://adainitiative.org/what-we-do/conference-policies/ Here is a > summary: > > > Why have an official anti-harassment policy for your conference? First, > it is necessary (unfortunately). Harassment at conferences is incredibly > common - for example, see this timeline ( > http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/index.php?title=Timeline_of_incidents) of > sexist incidents in geek communities. Second, it sets expectations for > behavior at the conference. Simply having an anti-harassment policy can > prevent harassment all by itself. Third, it encourages people to attend who > have had bad experiences at other conferences. Finally, it gives conference > staff instructions on how to handle harassment quickly, with the minimum > amount of disruption or bad press for your conference. > > If the conference already has something like this in place, and I'm just > uninformed, please educate me and let's do a better job publicizing it. > > Thanks for considering this suggestion. If the answer is the usual > code4lib answer (some variation on "Great idea! How are you going to make > that happen?") then I hereby nominate myself as a member of the > Anti-Harrassment Policy Adoption committee for the code4lib conference. > Would anyone else like to join me? > > Bess Sadler > b...@stanford.edu > Manager, Application Development > Digital Library Systems & Services > Stanford University Library >
