On Mon, Jul 07, 2014 at 12:44:15AM -0400, Marina Zhurakhinskaya wrote: > On Sat, Jul 5, 2014 at 11:43 AM, Christophe Fergeau <[email protected]> > wrote: > > Hey Marina, > > > > Thanks for coming up with this detailed policy. > > > > On Sat, Jul 05, 2014 at 01:08:07AM -0400, Marina Zhurakhinskaya wrote: > >> Having a specific and actionable anti-harassment policy is important > >> for making the conference a safer space for everyone. > > > > Fwiw, I disagree with the wording, especially the "specific and > > actionable" and "safer for everyone". > > Specific policy spells out behaviors of common concern and lets people > know these are not acceptable at the conference. Actionable means that > people enforcing the policy know what to do if a violation occurs. > These both have to be clear ahead of time to minimize the uncertainty > during the event. The policy makes the event a safer space for > everyone because it helps people understand what are unacceptable > behaviors,
Except that the organizers/the board can decide by themselves that
something not listed in the document is to be considered as harassment
anyway...
> so that they avoid them, and also provides support
> structures to the victims in terms of knowing who to talk to and
> knowing that organizers will help ensure the harassment stops if it
> does occur.
In my mind, there is not much point in talking about a anti-harassment
policy if it's not going to be enforced.
> "GUADEC is a welcoming and friendly event, during which GNOME
> contributors often become friends and make resolves to come to the
> next one. The behaviors outlined in this policy do not commonly
> happen, but are spelled out to help ensure all attendees have the same
> expectation of a safe and friendly environment."
Sounds quite positive, though I'd drop the "safe".
> Sexual language and imagery create a sexualized environment, which is
> uncomfortable to some people
Should I make a list of things that make me uncomfortable so that we add
them to the policy? It's also quite easy to find non-sexual images that
will make a lot of people very uncomfortable, even sick but which are
not forbidden by this policy (some parts of 4chan are a good source for
that).
> and can make other harassing behavior
> seem permissible.
I think the policy is already abundantly clear that any unwanted
sexually-tainted attention is not welcome.
> The word harassment in the name of the policy is used here in a broad
> sense to include the actions that can make someone uncomfortable, but
> are not directed towards anyone in particular.
For what it's worth this is news to me, and I don't think it achieves
what you describe. It bans one very specific item which will make some
people uncomfortable, it does not even try to address non-sexual things
(religion, blood, meat, politics, ...) which could also make some people
uncomfortable. I understand why it's here, especially given where it
comes from, but I don't think this belongs in an anti-harassment policy,
at least not this way.
> > The rest of the text seems good to me, longer though still very
> > official, and potentially scary ("may I get in trouble if I make this
> > not politically correct joke to this person I've started to know a bit
> > better since the beginning of GUADEC? let's be safe and boring, just in
> > case").
>
> Making jokes that are funny at the expense of other people and seeing
> whether your new friends find them funny or offensive is in fact not a
> good idea.
You have added the "at the expense of other people" part when answering,
I did not mention that in my email.
>
> We can make the sentence about consequences more clear in the policy,
> as following:
Well, if people get there, they will have already been subjected to the
very official and legal sounding tone of the policy, which is what can
make the policy a bit scary and chilly imo. Since the policy is trying
to be extensive, people will be inclined to self-censorship even for
behaviour that would not be an issue at all, even more so for newcomers
who don't know 'us' very well yet. I was not really suggesting changing
the paragraph about the consequences.
Christophe
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