On Mon, Jul 07, 2014 at 10:51:21PM -0400, Marina Zhurakhinskaya wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 7, 2014 at 2:22 PM, Christophe Fergeau <[email protected]> wrote:
> >>
> >> Sexual language and imagery are a common concern. If there are other
> >> types of concerns people think are worth listing, they can be added.
> >> E.g. it can be "Sexual or violent language and imagery are not
> >> appropriate for any conference venue, including talks"
> >
> > This is a common concern in some circles yes. What we seem to be doing
> > here is assuming people are going to do bad (ie are going to be jerks),
> > and to avoid this, we have to put ourselves in the position of censors.
> 
> People will sometimes act as jerks either because they feel like it or
> because they don't realize how their actions affect others. This
> happens at technical conferences often. It happens at GUADEC rarely,
> but there have been a few incidents (most of them private).

Uh? I was talking about explicitly banning public display of sexual
imagery in the anti-harassment policy, I don't think these private
incindents had something to do with this, did they?


> Having a policy doesn't mean we assume everyone will be a jerk, but we
> want to deter or know how to deal with a jerk-like behavior because it
> might happen.

Well, public display of sexual imagery is not the only way of being a
jerk, I'm not talking about the anti-harassement policy as a whole here.
I can find plenty of offensive pictures which are not banned by the
policy (for example, Muhammad pictures, especially caricatures would be
a *very* bad thing to do). Why is the policy not banning that because
some people could be jerks? Also, I remember
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-moXUALZtw caused some issues in a past
GUADEC, but still we do nothing about this in the policy, and we try to
prevent potential abuse of sexual imagery?


> 
> http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents
> http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/EMACS_virgins_joke
> 
> > I'm sorry, but I don't think we should be doing that.
> >
> > I'd rather assume people will do good, tell them we trust them to behave
> > appropriately, and possibly reminding them to be wary of others'
> > sensibilities. This seems much more positive to me and more rewarding
> > for our community.
> 
> We assume people will be good and abide by the anti-harassment policy.
> We have people of different genders and from different cultures
> attending, which is why spelling out what it means to behave
> appropriately is helpful.

This was again in the context of the ban of sexual imagery, I was
not talking about the anti-harassment policy as a whole.

> 
> >
> > Also, how do we define 'sexual'? Is
> > http://www.quandjeseraigrande.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Pub-Galeries-Lafayette-Jean-Paul-Goude1.jpg
> >  some sexual imagery which should be banned? (NB: this
> > is an ad campaign from a big French department store prominently
> > visible in Paris metro). Content which is OK in the US would probably be
> > frowned upon/unsettling from some more 'traditionalist' countries or
> > background. How do we set the bar here?
> 
> I think we can set the bar to exclude images that convey a sexual
> message, because they are off-topic for GUADEC.

What is "a sexual message"? Who will decide that? For some muslim,
women's hair must be covered, or even most of the face (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil#Islam ) « The principal aim of the
Muslim veil is to hide that which men find sexually attractive. ».

> GUADEC is a private event, and we can decide what is appropriate for
> it. If sexual images or language are not appropriate for it and we ask
> people not to use them, then using them is a harassing act. You can
> learn more about why people often feel that these types of images and
> language are harassing at technical conferences at
> http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-harassment_policy_resources#Sexualized_environment
> 

This is what I was saying at the beginning, I understand that sexualized
images are a concern for 'geek feminists'. I expect that different kind
of images will be a problem if there were vocal 'black geeks' or 'jewish
geeks' communities. I'm also not saying sexualized imagery is ok, just
that I don't see why this should be explicitly listed in that policy.

Christophe

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